SMS is supported by almost all mobile devices and mobile networks (GSM and others) in the world. An SMS message can contain a short text only, and it can be sent to a cellphone numbers in the world. SMS messages are routed internationally.

An EMS is an "enhanced SMS". It is supported by some manufactures (Nokia, SonyEricsson, etc), but not all. It is supported by all GSM networks. Although most newer mobile phones can receive EMS, it is not as widely accepted as standard SMS. EMS messages are routed internationally.

An MMS is a multimedia message. It is similar to SMS, in the way that it can be pushed to cellphones and it is similar to e-mail in the way that it can contain attachments, such as picture, video, sound, documents and applications. It is supported by most network and mobile phones, but it is often not routed internationally.

An E-mail is not a classic mobile message type, but it is supported by many new smart phones. The problem with e-mail is that the mobile phone must have Internet connectivity to download the new messages, and the mobile must log on every time to the Internet to check for new messages.

What kind of SMS message types are available?

EMS was introduced, because besides the data size limitation, SMS has another major drawback: an SMS message cannot include rich-media content such as pictures, animations and melodies by default. The EMS standard was developed as an application-level extension of SMS. An EMS message can include pictures, animations and melodies and other content, and provides the formatting of the text. For example, the message sender can specify whether the text in an EMS message should be displayed in bold or italic, with a large font or a small font. The drawback of EMS is that it is less widely supported than SMS on wireless devices. Also, many EMS-enabled wireless devices only support a subset of the features defined in the EMS specification. A certain EMS feature may be supported on one wireless device but not on the other.

Multimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a telecommunications standard for sending messages that include multimedia objects (images, audio, video, rich text). MMS is an extension of the SMS standard, allowing longer message lengths and using WAP to display the content. Its most popular use is sending photographs from camera-equipped handsets, although it is also popular as a method of delivering ringtones as well. The standard is developed by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), although during development it was part of the 3GPP and WAP groups.

Each MMS attachment can have a MIME type and a content. A complete list of available messages types supported by the Ozeki NG SMS Gateway can be found at the MMS content format list page.

Ozeki NG SMS Gateway can be used to push SYNCML settings to mobile handsets. It can use a GSM Modem attached to the server with a phone-to-pc data cable, or it can use IP SMS connections (SMPP, CIMD2, UCP/EMI protocols) to send this information. To send syncml settings, you can use an HTTP request to post the settings in XML form to Ozeki NG, or you can use a database server (such as Oracle, MSSql, MySql, etc.), and put the settings into a datbase table. Ozeki NG will read the table and push the settings in SMS to the destination mobile phone.

To use Ozeki NG to push SyncML settings in SMS to mobile phones from applications you should use the SMS:WAPPUSH:OTASYNCMLSETTINGS message type. If you want to test the system, you can select the WAP OTA SyncML Settings option in the compose menu.