While the focus of cellular market commentators has been on third-generation networks, with their promise of video conferencing and high-speed Internet access, camera phones and picture messaging, smart phones made for business professionals accessing corporate networks and an alphabet soup of acronyms GPRS, WAP, EDGE, etc - a decidedly "retro" technology has steadily been gaining attention.
Called Unstructured Supplementary Service Data - USSD - the technology has been around for as long as GSM networks (the cellular standard is used in most of the world, excluding parts of Asia and North America) have been in place. USSD is a signalling or control channel built into the GSM standard to transmit information or instructions from users to the cellular network management system, such as call forwarding, settings for messaging and crossborder roaming.
Just as with SMS (Short Message Service) it was soon discovered that this channel could be used for much more than it was originally designed for.
While today millions of SMSes are sent worldwide each day, USSD has yet to enjoy mass market success. That`s expected to change with a large number of projects being rolled out worldwide, particularly in emerging markets, with South Africa leading the way.
Iric Niezen, CE of Pretoria-based mobile applications company Flash Media Group, says SA is the first country to roll-out USSD projects on such a scale. "We have our own service called iZone, where customers can access information on anything from ocean tides, movie schedules and cocktail recipes to precious metal prices, bus times and emergency services.
"In addition, the Senwes real-time agricultural information service launched more than two years ago was the first of its kind in the world and SA Breweries, Computicket, SABC News and Programme guide, Flight Centre, CSIR, Aardklop, Sharenet, DairyBelle and many others are either piloting or in the launch phase of USSD projects."
USSD is a session-based, menu-driven interactive service: to access a service such as foreign exchange rates or lottery numbers one would dial a code, for example, * 120*lotto# - which will return a menu with options to receive the winning numbers, the jackpot size, news, etc; or you could enter your own number selection to see if you`ve won.
USSD is a person-to-application system and doesn`t allow for direct person-to-person communication, though chat and dating services - such as SA`s Connect2Me - make use of USSD to report traffic and system stats in real-time.
While USSD is a similar technology to SMS and has the same physical limitations in terms of text that can be transmitted, it has a number of crucial advantages.
Says Niezen: "The impulse behind exploring USSD for other applications was the fact that SMS was not interactive enough. USSD is a very elegant solution and, importantly, it`s around seven times faster than SMS or WAP-based services."
Billing takes place on a per-minute basis (Flash Media charges R1 ,501 minute based on 20 second increments), though other billing options are possible for example, monthly subscription to a specific service or on a per instance basis.
Niezen says the best way to charge for services is still being debated, but the network operators will, among others, use the various USSD services to increase their data traffic (which in SA still accounts for less than 5% of revenues at the three networks), or as a value-added service to increase customer loyalty and "stickiness". USSD is often employed with SMS or WAP as complementary technology.
USSD is also well suited to provide a low-cost way of achieving customer service by lessening the load placed on call centres. It`s particularly with low ARPU (average revenue per user) markets such as SA, where prepaid spend is only around R100/month, that network operators are seeking ways of reducing their costs of supporting subscribers.
Flash Media`s service - accessed by dialling *120*500# or by going to www.120.co.za for access codes that take you straight through to specific services, such as *120*MOVIE# - is network independent. Vodacom already supports the service on a commercial basis, with MTN (already in a free pilot phase) and Cell C expected to follow soon.
Niezen says: "We`ve had 800 000 users on our system since launch over two years ago and the application of the technology is legion. A particularly effective use of USSD is to use it to conduct market surveys and polls."
Unlike SMS, which is based on storing and forwarding messages, the USSD person-to-application communication channel remains open - which is why responses are immediate. Like SMS, USSD is limited to text, but has advantages over SMS other than the speed and greater interactivity mentioned: It allows for search functionality. It`s a pull not a push medium, so sessions are only conducted on the request of the user, eliminating the possibility of unwanted or spam messages. It`s available on virtually all GSM handsets in current use and requires no setup. It`s based on interactive menus, so the applications can be interfaced with databases and call centres. It allows for real-time transactions. When roaming overseas, access codes for services remain the same.
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