Method and system for multimedia message delivery in a communication system

1. A method of delivering a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) message comprising:

requesting, by a user agent (UA), from an MMS relay/server a storage location, storage size, and duration for outside content to be indirectly referenced by an MMS message;

receiving, by the UA, from the MMS relay/server a response that includes the storage location and duration for the outside content;

sending, by the UA, the outside content to the MMS relay/server for storing to the storage location;

encapsulating, by the UA, the MMS message in a payload of a transport message, the MMS message indirectly referencing the storage location of the outside content;

sending, by the UA, the transport message to the MMS relay/server over a transport network; and

receiving, by the UA, confirmation of receipt of the MMS message with an MMS confirmation message encapsulated in another transport message that is sent from the MMS relay/server to the UA;

wherein the requesting includes asking the MMS relay/server to reserve a portion of itself as the storage location to store the outside content for a storage period equaling the duration; and

wherein the outside content has not been stored on the MMS relay/server yet during the requesting.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the outside content is received from a mobile user agent (UA).

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the transport network is a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based network.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the SIP based network includes at least a portion of the Internet.

5. The method of claim 3 wherein the SIP based network includes at least a portion of a mobile telephone network.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the MMS message contains a header and a packet data unit (PDU) encoded in Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) format.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein sending, by the UA, the outside content occurs through Hypertext Transfer Protocol on an SIP based network.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the transport message and the another transport message are both messages in a transport layer.

9. A method for communicating using a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) over a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based network comprising:

receiving, by an MMS relay/server, a request for a storage location, storage size, and duration for outside MMS content, wherein the request asks the MMS relay/server to reserve a portion of the MMS relay/server as the storage location to store the outside MMS content for a storage period equaling the duration, and wherein the outside MMS content has not been stored on the MMS relay/server yet when the request is made;

sending, by the MMS relay/server, a response that includes the storage location and duration for the outside MMS content;

receiving, by the MMS relay/server, the outside MMS content for storing to the storage location;

receiving, by the MMS relay/server, a SIP message request over the SIP based network;

determining, by the MMS relay/server, that a message payload of the SIP message request contains a universal resource indicator (URI), the URI providing an indirect reference to the MMS content outside the SIP message;

accessing, by the MMS relay/server, the outside MMS content from the storage location indicated by the URI; and

sending, by the MMS relay/server, another SIP message request over the SIP network, the another SIP message request including a message payload that contains an MMS confirmation message.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising providing a message recipient with the URI corresponding to the storage location.

11. The method of claim 9 , wherein the SIP message and the another SIP message are both messages in a transport layer.

12. The method of claim 9 , further including, in response to the request, reserving, by the MMS relay/server, the portion of the MMS relay/server for the outside content at the storage location for the storage period.

13. A method for sending multimedia (MM) content over a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) based network, the method comprising:

requesting, by a multimedia messaging service (MMS) user agent, a storage location, storage size, and duration of the storage for the MM content;

receiving, by the MMS user agent, a Universal Resource Indicator (URI) corresponding to the storage location for the MM content;

sending, by the MMS user agent, the MM content to be loaded to the storage location indicated by the URI;

sending, by the MMS user agent to an MMS relay/server, a first SIP message request over the SIP network, the first SIP message request including a payload that contains the URI for indirectly referencing the MM content; and

receiving, by the MMS user agent from the MMS relay/server, a second SIP message request over the SIP network, the second SIP message request including a payload that contains an MMS confirmation message

wherein the requesting includes asking the MMS relay/server to reserve a portion of itself as the storage location to store the MM content for a storage period equaling the duration; and wherein the MM content has not been stored on the MMS relay/server yet during the requesting.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the loading includes sending the MM content to the MMS relay/server via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the duration of the storage is a minimum length of time that the storage location is reserved for the MM content.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein the payload of each the first and second SIP message requests is encoded in Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) format.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein the first and second SIP messages are both messages in a transport layer.