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A new joint project created by Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia hopes to make mobile instant messaging and presence services work across devices and networks. Called the Wireless Village initiative, the joint project was announced by the Big Three of mobile handsets on Thursday. Wireless Village was established to define and promote a set of universal specifications for mobile instant messaging services. The technology will allow users to send instant messages and subscribe to additional services on various devices, such as cell phones, pagers, and Personal Digital Assistants, the companies said in a joint statement. Millions already use instant messaging services on PCs connected to the Web.

Standardizing Mobile IM

The Wireless Village initiative, chaired by Nokia's Director of Messaging Frank Dawson, intends to deliver architectural, protocol, and test specifications and tools for instant messaging and presence services by the end of this year. The initiative is open to participation from the industry.

"We hope to grow a community that represents wireless and fixed players. This includes handset manufacturers, mobile operators, and service providers," Dawson says. America Online, today's instant messaging market leader with ICQ and AIM, has been invited, Dawson adds.

AOL has been criticized for not encouraging interoperability between its services and instant messaging services like Microsoft's MSN Messenger and Yahoo's YIM. AOL, Yahoo, and MSN offer instant messaging services on wireless pagers, phones and PDAs.

Mobile and fixed instant messaging might not work together from the start, although Dawson stresses Wireless Village doesn't seek a partition between wireless and fixed messaging. "The initial phase might include some proxies or gateways to get the systems to work together," he says, noting that the Wireless Village specification will be published for market players to use.

Location, Location

Although the mobile services will have capabilities similar to those offered on a PC, the creators of the Wireless Village initiative envision phone users paying for most of the functionality. Users will be able to subscribe to presence services, such as a listing of which friends are currently online, a key function of instant messaging services on the PC.

"The presence service is really value-added and unique in the mobile environment," says Nokia spokesman Jyrki Rosenberg. "In the mobile sphere it is more relevant than in the PC environment to know whether somebody is available or busy.The presence service will open up a new market and could also be linked with other services, like calendars."

Services based on the new specification can be offered on third-generation mobile networks as well as present-day second-generation networks and so-called 2.5G networks worldwide, the companies say.

"The user will get a richer service on more advanced networks," Rosenberg says .

Chat on the Go

The service will allow users to participate in private or public chat rooms and will include security capabilities for user authentication, secure message transfer, and access control, the companies say.

Ultimately, network operators will be able to provide meeting and conferencing services with shared content. Services based on the new specification can be offered on 3G (third-generation) mobile networks as well as current networks, the companies say.

The new mobile instant messaging protocol will be based on existing technologies, such as Extensible Markup Language, Short Message Service and its successor Multimedia Message Service, and other protocols such as Wireless Application Protocol and Session Initiation Protocol, the companies say.

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