EMS, short for Enhanced Messaging Service, was developed to expand the function of SMS. Since SMS message cannot include rich-media content such as pictures, animations and melodies. It is an application-level extension of SMS. An EMS message can include pictures, animations and melodies. Also, the formatting of the text inside an EMS message is changeable. For example, the message sender can specify whether the text in an EMS message should be displayed in bold or italic, with a large font or a small font.

The drawback of EMS is that it is less widely supported than SMS on wireless devices. Also, many EMS-enabled wireless devices only support a subset of the features defined in the EMS specification. A certain EMS feature may be supported on one wireless device but not on the other. EMS messages that are sent to devices that do not support it will be displayed as SMS transmissions.

Japan cell phone gossary
What is Unlocked Cell Phone?
What is Dual-band/Tri-band/Quad-band
What is GSM?
What is WCDMA?
What is CDMA?
What is 3G?
What is a SIM Card?
What is Pre-Paid Phone Cards?
What is SMS?
What is MMS?
What is PHS?