SMS -> User Applications

The vast majority of SMS usage is accounted for by consumer applications. It is not uncommon to find 90% of a network operator's total SMS traffic being accounted for by the applications described in this next section. The main consumer applications based on SMS are:

When the information to be communicated is short or it would take too long to have a full conversation or someone is traveling overseas or not available to take a voice call, SMS is an ideal messaging medium. For example, network operators typically charge the same to send a short message to someone in the same room as they do to someone traveling overseas with their mobile phone. 

Because short messages are proactively delivered to mobile phones that are typically kept in the user's pocket and can be stored for later reference, SMS is often more convenient than email or Data to communicate amongst distributed and mobile groups of people.

Once users have familiarized themselves with reading and sending short messages, they often find that SMS is a useful way of exchanging information and keeping in touch with friends. This is particularly so when the recipient is also able to reply to messages for two-way communication. If the recipient of the short message is unable to read or reply to it, then clearly the effectiveness of using SMS as the communications media is much lower. This is one of the reasons why simple person to person messaging is popular with many young people, a group that is generally more willing to learn how to use new technologies such as SMS.

As such, simple person to person messaging generates a high volume of short messages.

Voice and Fax Mail Notifications
The most common use of SMS is for notifying mobile phone users that they have new voice or fax mail messages waiting. This is therefore the starting point for most mobile network operators and the first (but hopefully not the last) time that mobile phone users use SMS. Whenever a new message is dispatched into the mailbox, an alert by SMS informs the user of this fact.

Because SMS is already routinely used to alert users of new voice mail messages, this application is and will remain one of the largest generators of short messages.

Unified Messaging
Unified messaging is an emerging value-added network service that is particularly compelling because it elevates communication above the technology used to communicate- the message takes precedence over the media. Currently, it is difficult to manage all the different kinds of messages that people get- they have to dial in and pick up emails, pick up their faxes from the fax machine, call in and listen to voice mail and so on.

Unified messaging involves providing a single interface for people to access the various different kinds of messaging they use. Be the messages fax, voice mail, short messages, email or so on, they can be conveniently accessed from a single point in the most actionable form.

The user typically receives a short message notifying them that they have a new message in their unified messaging box. The short message often also includes an indication of the type of new message that has been deposited, such as fax, email or voice mail.

Unified messaging is a convenient application that is likely to become mainstream in the future. It should therefore be a significant generator of short messages as more services are launched.

Internet Email Alerts

Upon receiving a new email in their mailbox, most Internet email users do not get notified of this fact. They have to dial in speculatively and periodically to check their mailbox contents. However, by linking Internet email with SMS, users can be notified whenever a new email is received.

The Internet email alert is provided in the form of a short message that typically details the sender of the email, the subject field and first few words of the email message. Most of the mobile Internet email solutions incorporate filtering, such that users are only notified of certain messages with user-defined keywords in the subject field or from certain senders. Users could find it expensive or inconvenient to be alerted about every email they receive (including unsolicited "spam" emails), which would reduce the value of the service.

Because of the high and increasing usage of Internet email to communicate globally, and the benefit from using SMS to notify mobile users about important new email messages, this is likely to be a fast growing and popular application for SMS.

Ringtones
Another emerging SMS-based application is downloading ringtones. Ringtones are the tunes that the phone plays when someone calls it. With the same phone often sold with the same default tune, it is important for phone users to be able to change their ringtone to distinguish it from others. Phones often come with a range of different ringtones built into the phone's memory that the users can choose from. However, it has become popular to download new ringtones from an Internet site to the phone- these phones tend to be popular television or film theme tunes. It is important that network operators consider copyright issues when offering ringtone services, since such commercial tunes much be licensed before they can legally be distributed (the people behind "The Saint" theme tune must be getting reach!). Ringtone composers are also popular because they allow mobile phone users to compose their own unique ringtones and download them to their phones.

Much of the usage is spurred by word of mouth- people hear someone else's phone ringing and ask where they got that particular ringtone.

As mobile phone penetration increases, and everyone has a mobile phone, unique ringtones to help determine just whose phone is ringing will become increasingly popular. Expect to see this application grow in availability and popularity over time.

Chat
An emerging application for the Short Message Service is chat. In the same way as Internet chat groups have proven a very popular application of the Internet, groups of likeminded people- so called communities of interest- have begun to use SMS as a means to chat and communicate and discuss.

Chat can be distinguished from general information services because the source of the information is a person with chat whereas it tends to be from an Internet site for information services. The "information intensity"- the amount of information transferred per message tends to be lower with chat, where people are more likely to state opinions than factual data.

SMS-based chat services are an emerging application area. It remains to be seen how willing the participants in the chat groups are to pay for EVERY message sent to the chat channel. It is likely that commercial chat services will let participants select which messages they receive on their mobiles according to who the message sender is.

Because SMS chat applications are high volume applications whereby one message submission leads to multiple message deliveries, expect this application to be a significant generator of short messages in the future.

Information Services

The Short Message Service can be used to deliver a wide range of information to mobile phone users from share prices, sports scores, weather, flight information, news headlines, lottery results, jokes to horoscopes. Essentially, any information that fits into a short message can be delivered by SMS.

Information services can therefore be configured as push-based and from a public or private source or pull-based and from a public or private source. An information service for an affinity program may combine public information such as share prices with private information from bank databases.

Successful information services should be simple to use, timely, personalized and localized.

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