Customers "Get the Picture" with AT&T Wireless mMode Pix

Company's GPRS network first to provide photo messaging in United States

By Rod Nelson, AT&T Wireless Chief Technology Officer August 28, 2002

If I likened our recent introduction of mMode Pix to players on a baseball team, I'd have to say that GPRS could be viewed as the cleanup hitter in a lineup full of stars.

Having full confidence in the GPRS network technology and reliability allowed us to focus our attention toward other team members – content providers, device manufacturers and others – in developing what we believe is a winning service for our customers, and a first in the United States.

To access mMode Pix, customers attach a miniature digital camera accessory – which weighs less than an ounce – to the bottom of a Sony Ericsson T68i wireless phone. When the camera is attached, the phone's display screen becomes the viewfinder and customers simply press a button on the camera to take a picture.

Offering consumers and businesses the ability to easily send digitized color photos is the next logical step in providing messaging capabilities beyond simple text. Right now, mMode Pix allows customers to send photos in standard JPEG format to any e-mail address in the world.

Photos can also be used as background images for a phone's display, assigned as picture caller ID, or swapped between other phones, PDA's or laptops using the phone's infrared or Bluetooth capabilities.

And since the photos generally are low-resolution pictures, they don't consume that much data. Customers have the ability to choose one of four picture sizes based on how they plan to use the picture. For example, using the smallest picture size (VGA – 80 x 60 pixels), it takes about 6K to send a picture, while sending the large picture size (VGA – 640 x 480 pixels), takes about 80K. Additionally, the phone or the camera attachment can store between 14 to 200 photos, depending on the size of the pictures.

The fact that photo messaging, and other AT&T Wireless services that allow customers to locate friends, are built upon GPRS should come as no surprise. As the global wireless standard for transmitting data, GPRS offers carriers the flexibility needed to provide customers with advanced wireless services.

AT&T Wireless mMode Pix press release