APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR ROUTING MULTIMEDIA MESSAGES BETWEEN A USER AGENT AND MULTIPLE MULTIMEDIA MESSAGE SERVICE CENTERS

摘要

An apparatus and a method for routing a multimedia message sent by a user agent to one of a plurality of multimedia message service centers, the user agent applying a pre-determined destination address to the multimedia message. The multimedia message is received at the pre-determined destination address, a target multimedia message service center is selected and the multimedia message is forwarded to the target multimedia message service center. Routing is based on address information contained in the multimedia message, session identification information associated with the multimedia message, load-balancing and fault-tolerance information associated with each one of the plurality of multimedia message service centers, service identifying information contained in the multimedia message and combinations thereof.