Radio 1 Offers Free Picture Messaging For a Day
- Monday, November 30th, 2009
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BBC Radio 1 listeners will be able to send the radio station free picture messages from their mobile phones for the first time on Friday 11 December, as part of its Access All Areas week. Listeners in the UK will be able to send free picture messages to the BBC Radio 1 messaging number (81199), for a chance to see their images featured on the Radio 1 website.
Mobile industry trade body, the Mobile Data Association (MDA), brought together each of the UKs major mobile network operators – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Vodafone and Virgin Media – to form a partnership with the BBC which aims to get more young people involved with the station.
The MDA has also launched an educational getsettings website http://www.getsettings.org
with the long-term aim of helping people to send picture messages. Links are available on the website to the mobile operators websites, to enable people with phones which are not locked to the SIMs network to obtain the correct picture messaging settings. These are typically phones that have previously been used on a different network, or that are being used with SIM only contracts.
Martin Ballard, Operations Director at the MDA, says:
BBC Radio 1s Picture Messaging Day should provide a springboard to generate further interest in the medium. Our getsettings website aims to address configuration issues around older handsets in circulation and SIM-only contracts. But the emergence of increasingly sophisticated and affordable devices means users can begin to capitalise on the rich mobile messaging facilities which are now available, as they did with text messaging at the beginning of the decade.
WIN plc, an enabler of interactive mobile media, entertainment and data services, is providing the technology which allows picture messages to be received and managed.