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SMS
Mobile Originate
The network operator launches SMS Mobile Originate to give customer true two-way
SMS capability. Customers experiment with the service and work out new uses for
it. Addition of SMS Mobile Originate typically leads to 25% increase in overall
SMS volumes being handled.
Email
Additional of a wireless Internet/ mobile email service often follows, typically
with the customer's mobile number becoming part of the email address they are
allocated as part of the service. Emails sent to that address are forwarded as a
short message to their wireless phone. Such a service tends to be popular with
customers, especially in markets where Internet penetration is low and people
don't already have an email address. This typically leads to 20% increase in
overall SMS volumes being handled.
Information
Services
Addition of information services. These services typically start with mainstream
content such as news, travel, weather and sports and over time, new information
providers are sourced that offer lifestyle services such as horoscopes and
jokes. Because there is typically a lot of work involved in sourcing and setting
up content, these services tend to build up slowly, typically accounting for
about a 10% increase in SMS volumes being handled.
Business
Partners Program
The network operator starts to see independent companies experimenting with SMS-based
applications and offering these on a regional or company-specific basis. To
encourage these developments and assist in their widespread deployment, the
network operator hires a person whose sole responsibility is to manage relations
with these business partners and help them to get any technical or commercial
support they need. The aim is to try to get the business partners to deploy
their applications using their network's SMS services rather than those of their
competitors. Because vertical market applications can account for high messaging
volumes, the introduction of a business partners program can soon lead to a
further 20% increase in overall SMS message volumes being handled by the
network.
Second
Generation SMS Center
The network operator has seen gradual but significant increases in SMS traffic
volumes as these initiatives have been taken and awareness of SMS builds. They
then often find that their SMS Center capacity is starting to be challenged and
need to expand the existing platform or purchase an industrial strength SMS
Center from another supplier. This may involve a migration from MXE to Ericsson
e-SMS-C. This then removes any constraints in handling messages, and may lead to
corporate customer complaints about service reliability at peak times falling,
typically leading to a 10% increase in overall SMS message volumes.
National SMS
Interworking
The additional of
interworking between network operators who are competing in the same
geographical market gives customers to both networks the opportunity to use SMS
in the same way as they do voice. Just as they can make a voice call to each
other's phones, so too can they send short messages to each other. Enabling this
capability can rapidly increase the number of available messaging destinations,
thereby increasing the value and use of SMS. As such, adding national SMS
interworking can lead to an uplift of 50% in SMS message volumes.
By this time,
the total use of SMS on the network has reached "Critical Mass". There
are sufficient regular users and awareness of and momentum behind the services.
SMS has become an integral and important part of many customer's everyday
business and personal lives.
Facilitating
international SMS roaming is also important, particularly in land-locked
countries where border crossing is frequent.
SMS
for Prepayment
The next quantum leap in SMS traffic volumes is caused by the introduction of
SMS for prepayment customers. These customers pay for their cellular airtime as
they go rather than having contracts. Enabling the prepay customers to send
short messages causes large traffic uplifts because the typical young person who
is the main user of prepaid services is also ready, willing and able to
manipulate the phone keypad and originate short messages. When customers are
cost conscious, they tend to use SMS to let their friends know about changes in
meeting arrangements and so on, calculating that this is less expensive than
making a voice call to communicate the same information. An increase in SMS
traffic of 100% (sometimes more) is not unusual when SMS for prepay is
introduced.
For example,
as we saw at the start of this guide, whilst Vodafone in the UK had more
postpaid customers than prepay (three million postpaid, two million prepaid),
the prepay customers sent more than twice as many short messages as the postpaid
users.
Predictive
Text Input Phones
Because simple person to person messaging is such an important component of
total SMS traffic volumes, anything that simplifies message generation is an
important enabler of SMS. Predictive text input algorithms such as T9 from Tegic
that anticipate which word the user is trying to generate significantly reduce
the number of key strokes that need to be made to input a message. Widespread
incorporation of such algorithms into the installed base of mobile phones will
typically lead to an average uplift in SMS traffic of 25% per enabled user.
These predictive text algorithms support multiple languages.
Standardized
Protocols e.g. WAP
The introduction of
standardized protocols such as SIM Application Toolkit and the Wireless
Application Protocol (WAP) contributes to an increase in messaging usage by
providing a standard service development and deployment environment for
application developers and business partners. These protocols also make it
easier for users to reply to and otherwise access messaging services through the
provision of custom menus on the phone. As such, whilst these protocols are only
a means to an end and not new messaging destinations or services in their own
right, they are likely to lead to a 10-15% uplift in total SMS volumes.
Terminal
Developments e.g. Smart, Handheld Computers
The introduction of more friendly and easy to use terminals contributes to
increases in messaging usage by providing simpler access to messaging services.
Terminals such as smart phones make it easier for users to originate, reply to
and otherwise access messaging services through the provision of a QWERTY
keyboard rather than the limited keypad on standard mobile phones.
As such,
whilst these terminals are only a means to an end and not new messaging
destinations or services in their own right, they are likely to lead to a 10-15%
uplift in total SMS volumes. As such, there are various steps that mobile
carriers can and should take to spur the development of SMS usage. Each of these
steps is complementary and useful in making SMS a success. It is the combined
effect from these steps that has led to the significant and almost exponential
growth in the usage of SMS by many developed network operators since the late
1990s.
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