A new offering could drastically cut the costs of sending an SMS. Vodacom recently increased the rate for international text messages to R1.75 per message, whereas local start-up company Mobi Wireless offers savings of up to two-thirds.
The Cape Town-based mobile Java developer has come up with a midlet (mobile Java 2 application, called mobiSMS) which allows cellphone users to bypass their operators, and the costs of dealing with them, when sending an SMS.
Local and international SMS messages via mobiSMS will cost about 45c, while normally local SMSs cost 75c in business hours and 25c after hours.
Using general packet radio service (GPRS, a data-enabler of GSM cell networks and a hotly hyped but poorly used technology locally), the midlet communicates with the mobiSMS portal, from where SMSs are delivered worldwide.
MobiSMS provides a synchronised Web portal which allows users to manage their address book, create predefined SMS messages, select predefined "funky" messages, view SMS history, purchase credits and schedule SMSs.
The SMS delivered will have sender ID set so that it appears as if the SMS was sent as per normal from the cellphone.
Director Gary Cousins, formerly with AmVia and Siemens, says mobiSMS is primarily targeted at users outside SA, particularly as there is a significant cost advantage for them. "We have customers in Hungary who send SMS messages using dial-up WAP [Wireless Application Protocol], paying a flat rate instead of being charged exorbitantly per minute. They pay only one-third of their normal SMS charge.
"In turn, the UK mobile market has matured to such a degree that there is widespread GPRS acceptance and Java phones about. Our charge of 0.05 euros makes mobiSMS a positively attractive offering to Vodacom Java/GPRS users."
The US, by contrast, is a miasma of incompatibility, so Mobi Wireless has not tackled this market.
But SA also lags behind. Cousins` point is that many cellphone users, particularly of the increasingly ubiquitous Nokia 6310i, do not use their phones to their full benefit.
"Does any Nokia literature focus on the 'Java-bility` of their phones? No, and I`m surprised."
He says both Vodacom and MTN have GPRS services, and an increasing number of handsets are Java-enabled, which puts SA users smack in the middle of this particular revolution. "Why don`t we take to it so readily then?"
Cousins likens the underachieving trend with handsets to the early days of PCs. "Selling users their new desktops, and then trying to get them to connect to the Internet was, frankly, a nightmare. Now, of course, they buy it with a modem, go plug it in, and it works. Similarly, we need cellphones with ready-loaded Java applications, so that it works hassle-free."
He points out that users with bulk SMS deals, who pay about 20c per SMS, cannot benefit from the cost savings.
Early versions of Nokia 6310`s cannot use Mobi Wireless and with WAP an expensive means of connecting, this functionality may take a while to take off.
Despite the lack of early adopters in SA (Cousins cannot at this stage give any user references), GPRS will surely take off, with its cost advantages the main arrow in Mobi`s quiver. Cousins claims 1 000 users in three months in 45 countries.
Vodacom and MTN were unable to comment in time for publication.
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