3GPP TSG-T2 #13
Busan, KOREA 
14-18 May 2001	T2-010533 	

Agenda Item:	MMS

Source:	France Telecom, Sonera

Title:	Transmission of originator MSISDN address to MMS Relay/Server

Document for:	Discussion

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Under our studies France Telecom and Sonera have noticed that there may be serious problems in MMS systems when first actual implementations will be available in the near future. This concerns especially the sender’s MSISDN address in MM submission and the recipient’s MSISDN address in MM retrieval.

In current 3GPP 23.140 MMS specification, transmission of originator MSISDN address to MMS Relay/Server is not clear and it needs some clarification. According to the current MMS specification, when sending a multimedia message (MM1_submit.REQ), the MSISDN address of the originator is an optional parameter and may not be inserted into the message by the originator MMS User Agent. In that case, the originator MMSE shall insert the originator’s address into the MM when delivering the MM further. The identified problem is that the originator MSISDN address may be used to identify the originator of the MM (e.g. to check the right to use MMS Relay/Server) and shall be used when charging data is created.

However, our understanding is that the MMS User Agent does not know its MSISDN address and the sender’s address in MM1_submit.REQ messages is typed into the MMS UA by the user. For that reason it will not be possible to use the sender’s address from MM1_submit.REQ e.g. to identify to user and to create CDR.

Only reliable user identification comes from the transport layer of MMS, e.g. either from WAP session or from the WAP bearer level. Currently the specifications does not define or does not give any recommendations how the MSISDN of the originator is transferred from transport layer or whether it is required that transport layer transfers the MSISDN number to MMS Relay/Server. 

In WAP implementation the MSISDN of the originator is transferred to MMS Relay/Server in most cases but not always. However, the actual process how the MMS Relay/Server gets the MSISDN address of the originator from the network is not clear in the MMS WAP implementation nor it is not described in MMS WAP specification or 3GPP MMS specifications. Our understanding is that WAP Gateway retrieves the MSISDN address from e.g. GGSN and pass it forward to MMS Relay/Server using Radius Accounting procedure. Retrieval and forwarding process of the MSISDN is not standardised in any MMS specifications. This may create serious interoperability problems if e.g. WAP Gateway and MMS Relay/Server are from two different manufacturers.

France Telecom and Sonera kindly ask T2 to consider this problem and either to include some recommendation to 3GPP TS 23.140 or ask WAP Forum MMDC to include recommendation to their specifications.