Testing

Explain testing process of your company?

Is functional and black box testing same or not

Diff stages between open and fixed status in defect bug cycle

What is the difference between functional testing and regression testing?
What are the deferent defect statuses?
What is the difference between severity and priority?

How you assign severity for a defect?

What is test deliverables?

Black box testing: Not based on any knowledge of internal design or code. Tests are based on requirements and functionality.

White box testing: based on knowledge of the internal logic of an application’s code. Tests are based on coverage of code statements, branches, paths, conditions.

Unit testing: the most ‘micro’ scale of testing; to test particular functions or code modules. Typically done by the programmer and not by testers, as it requires detailed knowledge of the internal program design and code. Not always easily done unless the application has a well-designed architecture with tight code; may require developing test driver modules or test harnesses.
1. What is load testing? - Load testing is to test that if the application works fine with the loads that result from large number of simultaneous users, transactions and to determine weather it can handle peak usage periods.
2. What is Performance testing? - Timing for both read and update transactions should be gathered to determine whether system functions are being performed in an acceptable timeframe. This should be done standalone and then in a multi user environment to determine the effect of multiple transactions on the timing of a single transaction.
wsp to http witch part will convert in wap
What is Defect Leakage?
Defect leakage occurs at the Customer or the End user side after the application delivery. After the release of the application to the client, if the end user gets any type of defects by using that application then it is called as Defect leakage. This Defect Leakage is also called as Bug Leak.

What are the contents in an effective Bug report?
Project, Subject, Description, Summary, Detected By (Name of the Tester), Assigned To (Name of the Developer who is supposed to the Bug), Test Lead ( Name ), Detected in Version, Closed in Version, Date Detected, Expected Date of Closure, Actual Date of Closure, Priority (Medium, Low, High, Urgent), Severity (Ranges from 1 to 5), Status, Bug ID, Attachment, Test Case Failed (Test case that is failed for the Bug)

What is Bug Life Cycle?

Bug Life Cycle is nothing but the various phases a Bug undergoes after it is raised or reported.
New or Opened, Assigned, Fixed, Tested, closed

What is the difference between Bug, Error and Defect?

Error: It is the Deviation from actual and the expected value.
Bug: It is found in the development environment before the product is shipped to the respective customer.
Defect: It is found in the product itself after it is shipped to the respective customer.

Negative testing –
Testing the system using negative data is called negative testing, e.g. testing the password where it should be minimum of 8 characters so testing it using 6 characters is negative testing.

Explain Load, Performance and Stress Testing with an Example.
Load Testing and Performance Testing are commonly said as positive testing where as Stress Testing is said to be as negative testing.
Say for example there is a application which can handle 25 simultaneous user logins at a time. In load testing we will test the application for 25 users and check how application is working in this stage, in performance testing we will concentrate on the time taken to perform the operation.

Where as in stress testing we will test with more users than 25 and the test will continue to any number and we will check where the application is cracking.

What are SDLC and STLC? Explain its different phases.
SDLC
 Requirement phase
 Designing phase (HLD, DLD (Program spec))
 Coding
 Testing
 Release
 Maintenance
STLC
 System Study
 Test planning
 Writing Test case or scripts
 Review the test case
 Executing test case
 Bug tracking
 Report the defect

What is Ad-hoc testing?
Ad hoc testing is concern with the Application Testing without following any rules or test cases.
For Ad hoc testing one should have strong knowledge about the Application.

What is the difference between structural and functional testing?

Structural testing is a "white box" testing and it is based on the algorithm or code.
Functional testing is a "black box" (behavioral) testing where the tester verifies the functional specification.

What is Re- test? What is Regression Testing?

Re- test - Retesting means we testing only the certain part of an application again and not considering how it will effect in the other part or in the whole application.

Regression Testing - Testing the application after a change in a module or part of the application for testing that is the code change will affect rest of the application.

What is UAT testing? When it is to be done?

UAT testing - UAT stands for 'User acceptance Testing. This testing is carried out with the user perspective and it is usually done before the release.

What software testing types can be considered?

Black box testing –
This type of testing doesn’t require any knowledge of the internal design or coding. These Tests are based on the requirements and functionality.

White box testing –
This kind of testing is based on the knowledge of internal logic of a particular application code. The Testing is done based on the coverage of code statements, paths, conditions.

Unit testing – The 'micro' scale of testing; this is mostly used to test the particular functions or code modules. This is typically done by the programmer and not by testers; it requires detailed knowledge of the internal program design and code. It cannot be done easily unless the application has a well-designed architecture with tight code; this type may require developing test driver modules or test harnesses.

Sanity Testing or Smoke Testing – This type of testing is done initially to determine if a new software version is performing well enough to accept it for a major testing effort. For example, if the new software is crashing the systems in every 5 minutes or corrupting databases, the software may not be in a 'sound’ condition to proceed for further testing in its current state.

Functional Testing – This a commonly used black-box testing geared to check the functional requirements of an application; this type of testing should be done by testers.

Integration Testing – This testing is combining the ‘parts’ of an application to determine if they function together correctly. The 'parts' can be code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to the client/server and distributed systems.


Incremental Integration testing –
This is continuous testing of an application when a new functionality is added the existing ones; it checks the application functionality by verifying whether it works separately before all parts of the program are completed, in this type it will be checked whether to introduce test drivers or not; this is done by programmers or by testers.

Regression Testing – This is testing the whole application again after the fixes or the modifications are done on the software. This is mostly done at the end of the Software development life cycle. Mostly Automated testing tools are used for this type of testing.

System testing – This is a type of black-box type testing that is based on overall requirements specifications; covers all combined parts of a system.

End-to-end testing – This is similar to system testing; this involves testing of a complete application environment such as interacting with a database, using network communications, or interacting with other hardware, applications and so on.

UAT (User Acceptance Testing) – This type of testing comes on the final stage and mostly done on the specifications of the end-user or client.

Usability testing – This testing is done to check the 'user-friendliness' of the application. This depends on the targeted end-user or customer. User interviews, surveys, video recording of user sessions, and other techniques can be used. Programmers and testers are usually not appropriate as usability testers.

Compatibility testing – Testing how well the software performs in a particular hardware, software, operating system, network etc.

Comparison testing – This is nothing comparing the software strengths and weakness with another competing product.

Mutation testing – This is another method for determining if a set of test data or test cases is useful, by purposely introducing various code changes or bugs and retesting with the original test data or cases to determine whether the 'bugs' are detected.


Describe the difference between validation and verification

Verification is done by frequent evaluation and meetings to appraise the documents, policy, code, requirements, and specifications. This is done with the checklists, walkthroughs, and inspection meetings.

Validation is done during actual testing and it takes place after all the verifications are being done.

What is the difference between QA and testing?

Testing involves operation of a system or application under controlled conditions and evaluating the results. It is oriented to 'detection'.

Software QA involves the entire software development PROCESS - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to 'prevention'.


What is quality assurance?

Software QA involves the entire software development PROCESS - monitoring and improving the process, making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented to 'prevention'.

What is the purpose of the testing?

Software testing is the process used to help identify the Correctness, Completeness, Security and Quality of the developed Computer Software.

Software Testing is the process of executing a program or system with the intent of finding errors.


1. What is Software Testing?
2. What is the Purpose of Testing?
3. What types of testing do testers perform?
4. What is the Outcome of Testing?
5. What kind of testing have you done?
6. What is the need for testing?
7. What are the entry criteria for Functionality and Performance testing?
8. What is test metrics?
9. Why do you go for White box testing, when Black box testing is available?
10. What are the entry criteria for Automation testing?
11. When to start and Stop Testing?
12. What is Quality?
13. What is Baseline document, Can you say any two?
14. What is verification?
15. What is validation?
16. What is quality assurance?
17. What is quality control?
18. What is SDLC and TDLC?
19. What are the Qualities of a Tester?
20. When to start and Stop Testing?
21. What are the various levels of testing?
22. What are the types of testing you know and you experienced?
23. What exactly is Heuristic checklist approach for unit testing?
24. After completing testing, what would you deliver to the client?
25. What is a Test Bed?
26. What is a Data Guidelines?
27. Why do you go for Test Bed?
28. What is Severity and Priority and who will decide what?
29. Can Automation testing replace manual testing? If it so, how?
30. What is a test case?
31. What is a test condition?
32. What is the test script?
33. What is the test data?
34. What is an Inconsistent bug?
35. What is the difference between Re-testing and Regression testing?
36. What are the different types of testing techniques?
37. What are the different types of test case techniques?
38. What are the risks involved in testing?
39. Differentiate Test bed and Test Environment?
40. What ifs the difference between defect, error, bug, failure, fault?
41. What is the difference between quality and testing?
42. What is the difference between White & Black Box Testing?
43. What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
44. What is the difference between Testing and debugging?
45. What is the difference between bug and defect?
46. What is the difference between verification and validation?
47. What is the difference between functional spec. and Business requirement specification?
48. What is the difference between unit testing and integration testing?
49. What is the diff between Volume & Load?
50. What is diff between Volume & Stress?
51. What is the diff between Stress & Load Testing?
52. What is the Diff between Two Tier & Three tier Architecture?
53. What is the diff between Client Server & Web Based Testing?
54. What is the diff between Integration & System Testing?
55. What is the Diff between Code Walkthrough & Code Review?
56. What is the diff between walkthrough and inspection?
57. What is the Diff between SIT & IST?
58. What is the Diff between static and dynamic?
59. What is the diff between alpha testing and beta testing?
60. What are the Minimum requirements to start testing?
61. What is Smoke Testing & when it will be done?
62. What is Adhoc Testing? When it can be done?
63. What is cookie testing?
64. What is security testing?
65. What is database testing?
66. What is the relation ship between Quality & Testing?
67. How do you determine, what to be tested?
68. How do you go about testing a project?
69. What is the Initial Stage of testing?
70. What is Web Based Application Testing?
71. What is Client Server Application Testing?
72. What is Two Tier & Three tier Architecture?
73. What is the use of Functional Specification?
74. Why do we prepare test condition, test cases, test script (Before Starting Testing)?
75. Is it not waste of time in preparing the test condition, test case & Test Script?
76. How do you go about testing of Web Application?
77. How do you go about testing of Client Server Application?
78. What is meant by Static Testing?
79. Can the static testing be done for both Web & Client Server Application?
80. In the Static Testing, what all can be tested?
81. Can test condition, test case & test script help you in performing the static testing?
82. What is meant by dynamic testing?
83. Is the dynamic testing a functional testing?
84. Is the Static testing a functional testing?
85. What are the functional testing you perform?
86. What is meant by Alpha Testing?
87. What kind of Document you need for going for an Functional testing?
88. What is meant by Beta Testing?
89. At what stage the unit testing has to be done?
90 Who can perform the Unit Testing?
91. When will the Verification & Validation be done?
92. What is meant by Code Walkthrough?
93. What is meant Code Review?
94. What is the testing that a tester performs at the end of Unit Testing?
95. What are the things, you prefer & Prepare before starting Testing?
96. What is Integration Testing?
97. What is Incremental Integration Testing?
98. What is meant by System Testing?
99. What is meant by SIT?
100 .When do you go for Integration Testing?
101 Can the System testing be done at any stage?
102. What are stubs & drivers?
103. What is the Concept of Up-Down & Down-Up in Testing in integration testing?
104. What is the final Stage of Integration Testing?
105. Where in the SDLC, the Testing Starts?
106. What is the Outcome of Integration Testing?
107. What is meant by GUI Testing?
108. What is meant by Back-End Testing?
109. What are the features, you take care in Prototype testing?
110. What is Mutation testing & when can it be done?
111. What is Compatibility Testing?
112. What is Usability Testing?
113 What is the Importance of testing?
114. What is meant by regression Testing?
115. When we prefer Regression & what are the stages where we go for Regression Testing?
116. What is performance testing?
117. What is the Performance testing; those can be done Manually & Automatically?
118 What is Volume, Stress & Load Testing?
119. What is a Bug?
120. What is a Defect?
121. What is the defect Life Cycle?
122. What is the Priority in fixing the Bugs?
123. Explain the Severity you rate for the bugs found?
124. Diff between UAT & IST?
125. What is meant by UAT?
126. What all are the requirements needed for UAT?
127. What are the docs required for Performance Testing?
128. What is risk analysis?
129. How to do risk management?
130. What are test closure documents?
131. What is traceability matrix?
132. What ways you followed for defect management?
133. What is diff between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing?



Answers




1. What is Software Testing?

A. Testing involves operation of a system or application under controlled conditions and evaluating the results, the controlled conditions should include both normal and abnormal conditions.
Testing is a process of executing a program with the intend of finding the errors.

2. What is the Purpose of Testing?

A. The purpose of testing is
1· To uncover hidden errors
2· To achieve the maximum usability of the system
3· To Demonstrate expected performance of the system
3. What types of testing do testers perform?
A. Two types of testing 1.White Box Testing 2.Black Box Testing.

4. What is the Outcome of Testing?
A. The outcome of testing will be a stable application which meets the customer Req's.

5. What kind of testing have you done?
A. Usability, Functionality, System testing, regression testing, UAT
(it depends on the person).

6. What is the need for testing?

A. The Primary need is to match requirements get satisfied with the functionality and also to answer two questions
1· Whether the system is doing what it supposes to do?
2· Whether the system is not performing what it is not suppose to do?

7. What are the entry criteria for Functionality and Performance testing?
A. Entry criteria for Functionality testing is Functional Specification /BRS (CRS)/User Manual. An integrated application, Stable for testing.

Entry criteria for Performance testing is successfully of functional testing, Once all the requirements related to functional are covered and tested, and approved or validated.

8. What is test metrics?
A. *

9. Why do you go for White box testing, when Black box testing is available?
A. A benchmark that certifies Commercial (Business) aspects and also functional (technical) aspects is objectives of black box testing. Here loops, structures, arrays, conditions, files, etc are very micro level but they arc Basement for any application, So White box takes these things in Macro level and test these things

Even though Black box testing is available, we should go for White box testing also, to check the correctness of code and for integrating the modules.

10. What are the entry criteria for Automation testing?
A. Application should be stable. Clear Design and Flow of the application is needed.

11. When to start and Stop Testing?
A. This can be difficult to determine. Many modern software applications are so complex, and run in such an interdependent environment, that complete testing can never be done.
Common factors in deciding when to stop are:

Deadlines (release deadlines, testing deadlines, etc.)
Test cases completed with certain percentage passed
Test budget depleted
Coverage of code/functionality/requirements reaches a specified point
Bug rate falls below a certain level
Beta or alpha testing period ends

12. What is Quality?
A. It ensures that software is a Bug free, delivered in time, with in budget, meets customer requirements and maintainable. Quality standards are different in various areas like accounting department might define quality in terms of Profit.

13. What is Baseline document?
A. The review and approved document is called as baseline document (i.e)Test plan, SRS.

14. What is verification?
A. To check whether we are developing the right product according to the customer requirements r not. It is a static process.

15. What is validation?
A. To check whether we have developed the product according to the customer requirements r not. It is a Dynamic process.

16. What is quality assurance?
A. Quality Assurance measures the quality of processes used to create a quality product.
1. It is a system of management activities.
2. It is a preventive process.
3. It applies for entire life cycle.
4. Deals with Process.


17. What is quality control?
A. Quality control measures the quality of a product
1. It is a specific part of the QA procedure.
2. It is a corrective process.
3. It applies for particular product.
4. Deals with the product.

18. What is SDLC and TDLC?
A. Software development life cycle (SDLC) is life cycle of a project from starting to ending of the project.
1. Requirements Specification.
2. Analysis
3. Design
4. Coding 5. Testing
6. User acceptance test (UAT) 7. Maintenance


Software Test Life Cycle (STLC) is a life cycle of the testing process.
1. Requirements Specification.
2. Planning
3. Test case Design 4.Execution
5. Bug Reporting . 6. Maintenance

19. What are the Qualities of a Tester?
A. Tester should have qualities like
1. Ability to break 2.paitence 3.communication
4. Presentation 5.team work. 6. Negative thinking with good judgment skills


20. When to start and Stop Testing?
A. repeat

21. What are the various levels of testing?
A. The various levels of testing like
1· Ad - Hoc testing
2. Sanity Test
3. Regression Testing
4. Functional testing
5· Web Testing

22. What are the types of testing you know and you experienced?
A. I am experienced in Black Box testing.

24. After completing testing, what would you deliver to the client?
A. It is depend upon what you have specified in the test plan document. The contents delivers to the clients is nothing but Test Deliverables.
1. Test plan document 2.Master test case document 3.Test summary Report.
4. Defect Reports.


25. What is a Test Bed?
A. Test bed means under what test environment (Hardware, Software set up) the application will run smoothly.

26. What is a Data Guidelines?

27. Why do you go for Test Bed?
A. We will prepare test bed because first we need to identify under which environment (Hardware, Software) the application will run smoothly, then only we can run the application smoothly without any interceptions.

28. What is Severity and Priority and who will decide what?
A. Severity and priority will be assigned for a particular bug to know the importance of the bug.
Severity: How severely the bug is effecting the application.
Priority: Informing to the developer which bug to be fix first.

29. Can Automation testing replace manual testing? If it so, how?
A. Yes, it can be done manually when the project is small, having more time. We can test with minimum number of users.

30. What is a test case?
A. A test case is a document that describes an input, action, or event and an expected response, to determine if a feature of an application is working correctly.

31. What is a test condition?
A. The condition required to test a feature.(pre condition)

32. What is the test script?
A. Test script is the script which is generated by an automation tool while recording a application features.

33. What is the test data?
A. Test data means the input data (valid, invalid data) giving to check the feature of an application is working correctly.

34. What is an Inconsistent bug?
A. the bug which is occurring

35. What is the difference between Re-testing and Regression testing?
A Re-testing: Executing the same test case by giving the no. of inputs on same build.
Regression testing: Executing the same test case on a modified build.

36. What are the different types of testing techniques?
A. 1.white Box testing 2.Black Box testing.

37. What are the different types of test case techniques?
A. 1. Equilance Partition. 2. Boundary Value Analysis. 3. Error guessing.



38. What are the risks involved in testing?

39. Differentiate Test bed and Test Environment?
A. Both are same.

40. What ifs the difference between defect, error, bug, failure, fault?
A. Defect: While executing the test case if u found any mismatch, the u will report
it to the development team, that is called defect.

Bug: Once the developer accepts your defect, then it is called as a bug.

Error: it may be program error or syntax error.

41. What is the difference between quality and testing?
A. QA is more a preventive thing, ensuring quality in the company and therefore the product rather than just testing the product for software bugs?

TESTING means "quality control"

Quality control measures the quality of a product
Quality Assurance measures the quality of processes used to create a quality product.

42. What is the difference between White & Black Box Testing?
A. White Box Testing: Based on the knowledge of the internal logic of an application's code. Tests are based on coverage of code statements, branches, paths, conditions.

Black Box testing:- not based on any knowledge of internal design or code.
Tests are based on requirements and functionality.

43. What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
A. Refer Question no.16 & 17
Quality Assurance measures the quality of processes used to create a quality product.
Quality control measures the quality of the product.

44. What is the difference between Testing and debugging?
A. The Purpose of testing is to show the program has bugs.
The Purpose of debugging is find the error/ misconception that led to failure and implement program changes that correct the error.

45. What is the difference between bug and defect?
A. Defect: While executing the test case if u found any mismatch, the u will report it to the development team that is called defect.

Bug: Once the developer accepts your defect, the it is called as a bug.

46. What is the difference between verification and validation?
A. Refer Question no.14 & 15

47. What is the difference between functional spec. and Business requirement specification?
A.
48. What is the difference between unit testing and integration testing?
A. Unit Testing: It is a testing activity typically done by the developers not by testers, as it requires detailed knowledge of the internal program design and code. Not always easily done unless the application has a well-designed architecture with tight code.
Integration testing: testing of combined parts of an application to determine if they function together correctly. The 'parts' can be code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems.

49. What is the diff between Volume & Load?
A. Load, stress testing comes under performance testing.
Load Testing: To test the performance of the application by gradually increasing the user loads.

Stress Testing: TO test the performance of the application and to find the server break down or where the server crashes.

Volume Testing: To test whether it can able to send max data according to client req's.

50. What is diff between Volume & Stress?
A. Refer Question no.49

51. What is the diff between Stress & Load Testing?
A. Refer Question no.49

52. What is the Diff between Two Tier & Three tier Architecture?
A. Two Tier Architecture: It is nothing but client server Architecture, where client will hit request directly to server and client will get response directly from server.

Three tier Architecture: It is nothing but Web Based application, here in between client and server middle ware will be there, if client hits a request it will go to the middle ware and middle ware will send to server and vise-versa.

53. What is the diff between Client Server & Web Based Testing?
A. Refer Question no.52

54. What is the diff between Integration & System Testing?
A. Integration testing: Testing of combined parts of an application to determine if they function together correctly. The 'parts' can be code modules, individual applications, client and server applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and distributed systems.


System Testing: System testing will conducted on the entire system to check whether
it is meeting the customer requirements r not.

55. What is the Diff between Code Walk through & Code Review?

56. What is the diff between walk through and inspection?
A. Walk through: A 'walk through' is an informal meeting for evaluation or informational purposes. Little or no preparation is usually required
Inspection: Inspection is an formal meeting, here every thing discussed will be documented such as a requirements spec or a test plan, and the purpose is to find problems and see what's missing, The result of the inspection meeting should be a written report.

57. What is the Diff between SIT & IST?

58. What is the Diff between static and dynamic?
A. Static Testing: Test activities that are performed without running the software is called Static Testing, it includes inspections, walk through and desk checks.

Dynamic testing: Test activities that are performed by running the software is called dynamic Testing.

59. What is the diff between alpha testing and beta testing?
A. Alpha Testing: alpha testing will be performed by client in our environment with dummy data, in this phase some major bugs can be allowed, later which will be solved by our development team.

Beta testing: beta testing will be performed by client in his environment with real data, in this phase no bugs can be allowed.




























Deepak K R
 What is Multimedia Messaging?

 When will MMS be introduced?
 When will the consumers see this service?
 Why is MMS important?
 How would MMS look like to the end users?
 What are some examples of MMS services?
 What content types does MMS support?
 I don't have an MMS phone; can I receive / send MMS messages?
 Can MMS messages be sent to an email address?
 How does the user's MMS experience compare to that of SMS?
 Are there any MMS phones available now?
 Does MMS need 3GSM?
 How big can an MMS message be?
 How fast is an MMS message from phone to phone?
 How does MMS compare to EMS?
 How does MMS compare to email?

 How is the MMS environment different from SMS?
 Is anyone setting standards for MMS?
 What is the connection between MMS and WAP?
 Does MMS require network changes?
 How interoperable are MMS messages across manufacturers?
What is Multimedia Messaging?
Multimedia messaging is a next generation message service. Multimedia messaging allows a variety of message elements to be sent to a user and these can contain text, animations, photographs, sounds and in future streaming audio and video. Users can compose their own messages, receive rich content messages from content providers and forward them onto their own contacts.
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When will MMS be introduced?
Some operators have already launched and many more will launch this summer (2002).
When will the consumers see this service?
Many operators are planning to launch before Christmas 2002.
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Why is MMS important?
For the subscriber MMS takes messaging out of the basic text users are used to and allows them to enjoy a much better messaging - more like they are used to via email or the Internet e.g. to send a greetings card or photograph of themselves.
For network operators MMS is important as it is the basis for a wide range of next generation services that pave the way for the improved 3G bandwidth to show its use, drive demand for data bandwidth and consequently increase operator revenues.
How would MMS look like to the end users?
Some of the first phones are introducing colour so this is a substantial improvement over black & white text. Initial devices may maintain the conventional size display but allow colour or grey scale images. The main thing users will see is that the experience is much more dynamic - a snapshot album of thumbnail images, a sequence of a cartoon e.g. Dilbert, captions and sounds combined with images.
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What are some examples of services on MMS?
Taking a snapshot via a camera phone and sending to a friend
Receiving cartoon strips
Composing your own animated picture messages and sending to friends
Sending audio files
Sending pictures & audio files with simultaneous playback
Advertising
Music download & play (really with 3G)
Storing pictures to an on line album
Remote surveillance
What content types does MMS support?
MMS is based on common Internet technologies currently supported on a variety of content types which would include plain text, HTML, audio in a variety of formats including an efficient new standard AMR and soon MP3, pictures as GIF, JPEG, PNG and in the future video using MPEG4
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I don't have an MMS phone; can I receive / send MMS messages?
You would need to be on a network that supports MMS; steps are being taken to allow MMS's to be supported at various capabilities by non MMS phone users e.g. by converting as far as possible to WAP. There are restrictions which are things like if you only have an SMS capable phone you might have to access your MMS messages using an internet connection.
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Can MMS messages be sent to an email address?
Yes, it is possible to do this - although your operator will need to support this capability
How does the user's MMS experience compare to that of SMS?
The experience is far superior especially with devices with colour displays, sound, text and picture sequences.
Are there any MMS phones available now?
The Ericsson T68i was the first phone available and we are starting to see more of these in user’s hands. Nokia have also started shipping their 7650 camera enabled MMS phone and another model is due soon. Many more models are expected.
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Does MMS need 3G?
Not at all, we're advising GPRS is the minimum although it works over circuit switched GSM it is costly to run. 3G will benefit capabilities such as streaming audio / video for example downloading full MP4 video clips may take too long over GPRS.
How big can an MMS message be?

There is not a network limit but initial devices are specifying minimum support for 30k - it's really a manufacturer limit concerning the amount of memory
How fast is an MMS message from phone to phone?
It could parallel an email message - might normally appear near instantaneous but could be delayed by load on servers and by who's sending from where to where or by network outages. It is not however designed to be real time.
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How does MMS compare to EMS?
EMS is delivered via SMS and this means it can be very costly and is using limited control channel capacity in a GSM network. EMS also supports picture messaging/ animation but MMS is much more capable of serving up multiple media together and also you wouldn't enjoy the experience of more complex media e.g. photographs, sound and video.
How does MMS compare to email?
It has many similarities to rich email content but delivered in a mobile friendly way. In fact MMS uses email technologies to underpin the technical capabilities. Some aspects of MMS will exceed standard email capabilities e.g. true control over sequences which conventional email doesn't handle.
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How is the MMS environment different from SMS?
MMS requires network operators to install MMS Server/ Relay equipment which integrates with existing infrastructure and connects to content providers, email gateways. SMS uses a control channel whereas MMS uses the data channel.
Is anyone setting standards for MMS?
The principle standards body is 3GPP for MMS though they use work by other standards bodies such as the WAP forum to assist in certain areas. The GSM association is active in collecting operator requirements to address to 3GPP to help advance these standards.
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What is the connection between MMS and WAP?
MMS capability uses many services of WAP to make it work - particularly the lower level WAP transport mechanisms which are optimised for operation over the GSM radio interface. MMS also uses WAP's push mechanism to transparently notify users of receipt of a new message.
Does MMS require network changes?
It requires additions of infrastructure components to handle the store & forward functions of MMS. MMSCs have to connect into other network components like HLRs, a network must also be WAP capable and realistically GPRS capable. And for proper service GPRS global roaming is required.
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How interoperable are MMS messages across manufacturers?
At a technical level the vendor community and operators have created an interoperability group to ensure maximum reliability in inter-working. Initially there may be differences between devices which will mean that there will be situations where an MMS composed on one device is not well rendered on another and this parallels a web page for a PC not looking good on a PDA.
Sending WAP Push Messages
Click here to return to the Now SMS/MMS Gateway Home Page

To send a WAP Push message via a menu driven interface, please see the help section titled “Web Menu Interface”. This section describes how to send a WAP Push programmatically via URL parameters.

WAP Push messages are specially formatted SMS messages that display an alert message to the user, and give the user the option of connecting directly to a particular URL via the mobile phone’s WAP browser.

For example, an e-mail application might send an alert that tells the user they have new e-mail, with a URL link to connect directly to a WAP e-mail application.

The WAP specifications define a format for applications to create XML-based “PAP” (Push Access Protocol) documents that can be posted to an operator’s “PPG” (Push Proxy Gateway), in order to deliver a WAP push message to a mobile device.

Unfortunately, the complexity of this format, and the reluctance of operators to open their “PPG” to just anyone, has made it difficult for developers to deploy “WAP Push” in their applications.

The Now SMS/MMS Gateway makes it easy to generate and deliver “WAP Push” messages. While the gateway does not support all of the options available via the PAP-based PPG interface, it does implement “WAP Push” in an elegantly simple solution.

To send a WAP Push message, use the following URL format:

http://127.0.0.1:8800/?PhoneNumber=xxxxxxxx&WAPURL=name.domain/path&Text=abc+def+ghi

For 127.0.0.1, please substitute the IP address or host name assigned to your gateway PC. (Note: 127.0.0.1 is a local loopback address that can be utilized when you are connecting to the gateway from the same computer.)

For 8800, please substitute the port number that the gateway is configured to use.

Substitute the phone number that you wish to send the SMS message to for the “xxxxxxxx” in the “PhoneNumber” parameter. Use either the local phone number format, or the international phone number format (your network provider may or may not allow you to send to international phone numbers). If the international phone number format is used, note that you must substitute “%2B” for the “+” character, because of URL escaping restrictions. For example, to send an SMS to +447778001210, use %2B447778001210 instead.

The alert text for the WAP Push message is contained in the “Text” parameter, and utilizes the same format as described in “Sending Text Messages”.

Note that there are two types of “WAP Push” messages, “Service Indication (SI)” and “Service Load (SL)”. The “SL” format can be selected by including “WAPSL=1” as a URL parameter, and does not support a “Text” parameter, while the “SI” format does. (By specification, the “SL” format was designed to tell the browser to connect to a URL without user intervention. However, for security reasons, mobile phones will always display a prompt before connecting to a URL. Therefore, the lack of a text parameter makes the “SL” format considerably less user-friendly than the “SI” format, and in practice, most users will exclusively use the “SI” format.)

The URL to be pushed to the mobile device is specified in the “WAPURL” parameter. Note that the “http://” portion of the URL is not necessary and is assumed. Also note that it may be necessary to escape some URL characters, please refer to the table in the “Sending Text Messages” section for common characters that must be escaped.