Large organisations are quickly recognising the limitless opportunities that SMS has to offer the business-to-business and business-to-consumer communication model. This is the view of Barry Prinsloo, Director of SMS Cellular Services, which provides the CellSys solution.
SMS and mobile technology service provider CellSys finds itself in a growth market, where the demand for real-time, cost-effective and enterprise-wide communication is on the up.
"SMS is traditionally the reserve of the youth and as a communication tool was well received by the informal South African mobile phone market," says Prinsloo.
"Having predicted that the business market has the potential to outstrip the consumer market in the messaging technology arena, CellSys ensured the adoption of an infrastructure ready for massive growth," says Prinsloo.
The CellSys infrastructure, with multiple physical and port connections, allows for the delivery of SMS messaging at rates of up to 1 000 per minute, more than sufficient for business needs. The SMS gateway is capable of delivering upwards of 800 SMS messages per second (over 40 000 per minute on a single port), however, the GSM networks (MTN, Vodacom and Cell C) in SA are unable to cope with this rate of delivery and thus force the delivery rate down to around 15 SMS messages per second per port. The technical details sound impressive, but the business benefits of SMS technology will be just as exciting, bringing significant savings to the bottom line.
"As the GSM operators increase their capacity, with the steady roll-out of GPRS (general packet radio service)," says Prinsloo, "CellSys will be able to take advantage of the resultant increased bandwidth to ensure the delivery of messages at the fastest rate possible in southern Africa.
"As GPRS is adopted by the operators, the capacity for data throughput will dramatically increase, paving the way for EMS (enhanced messaging service) and eventually MMS (multimedia messaging service) where even the transmission of video clips will be immediate," explains Prinsloo.
Once operators have increased their capacity for data, CellSys will be in a position to add EMS delivery to its bouquet of services. This is in addition to the company's current offerings of bulk SMS service delivery, trigger SMS, system originate SMS, mobile origination, picture messaging and a feedback model allowing the transmission of data from e-mail to SMS and SMS to e-mail.
"In a nutshell," concludes Prinsloo, "the CellSys solution currently meets entry-level business communication needs as well as multi-national enterprise requirements. The solution is easily deployable and can be integrated with applications via a wide range of interfaces. As the market grows, the CellSys infrastructure is ready to fire on all cylinders for a new world in communication technology."
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SMS and mobile technology leader CellSys provides enterprise-enabling SMS systems on a wide range of applications and platforms. The CellSys service includes a fully redundant network infrastructure for connection to GSM operators worldwide, including SA's Vodacom and MTN. This ensures an unparalleled level of availability allowing organisations to implement SMS-enabled business-critical applications. The simplicity of the interfaces and the ease of integration with the CellSys system mean that SMS-enabled applications can be deployed quickly and easily, with minimal cost.
Offerings such as service level agreements, access to a 24-hour help desk, network monitoring, engineering support and integration services, and consulting has enabled CellSys to develop an impressive list of blue chip clients in the banking, financial services, manufacturing and mining industries.
Developed in the late 1990s, the CellSys SMS gateway supports the full range of GSM SMS functionality including ESMS (enhanced short message service), WIG, smart messages, picture messaging, e-mail to SMS, SMS to e-mail and mobile origination.
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