Benoît Catelin's Blog

2010 will be the year of enterprise SMS messaging.

Not that SMS is the only media that enterprises are interested in but it is a channel most enterprises haven’t used yet. SMS just works. It is indeed simple, really basic, but it works. It is implemented in virtually all phones, which means that 4 billions people, or about two thirds of the world population, can be reached via this channel. You’d be a fool not to use this opportunity to build brand loyalty. SMS is not the ultimate channel, it is just one amongst many others, from web, street billboards, TV ads, magazine ads, paper coupons to… well, everything. But SMS channel has been too long ignored by many brands. It is a cheap and yet quite effective way to keep in touch with your customers base. Quite a few Marketing agencies are trying to push for this medium to be more used by brands and, with the economy getting better, 2010 should be a year where SMS finally receives the attention it deserves. Read the rest of this entry »

In December people like to predict what the next year will be about. That’s always a dangerous, and therefore interesting, exercise. My boss Bill did one, about SMS volumes. My colleague from our mCommerce team, Diarmuid, did his. And many other bloggers in the mobile industry did the same. Here is a list of blog entries about predictions for the year 2010 I’ve noticed: Read the rest of this entry »

On this page I’ve explained a few terms used in the SMS messaging industry. One of those was FTEU, for Free To End User.  We used to maintain three lists:

-          The Standard 2-Way SMS coverage list where we list countries and operators where 2-Way interaction is available via the SMS channel at a standard rate for the end-users (both for MO and MT) whether by using short codes or long codes (I’ll cover the long code section in a following post).

-          The PSMS coverage list – for where premium SMS billing is available.

-          And the standard SMS Messaging MT coverage list (we currently cover 750 operators for A2P services). Read the rest of this entry »

Since my last update, see it here, quite a few countries were added to the coverage list. During summer we have added 5 new countries.  Since then our teams have done an incredible job and managed to add 11 more countries. Sybase 365 can now reach 183 operators in 53 countries.

Those who have read the previous post will notice that 43+11 does not equal to 53. So, what happened? Where is the missing country?  Simply that we have decided to remove Turkey from the coverage list. On the list we display only countries where we have a live service. We have the connections in place for reaching the Turkish operators and are ready to go, but we still prefer to remove Turkey from the list as no service is yet launched. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is an explanation of some of the terms used when talking about SMS Messaging services.

PSMS

Premium SMS. With this kind of message a Revenue Sharing model applies between the content provider (aka information provider), the facilitator (aka service provider, i.e. Sybase 365) and the operator. In that case the end-user will be charged for MOs – from the mobile – or for MTs – to the mobile – or both, and the revenue will be shared between the three players cited above. This model has been proven successful for delivering content as ringtones, wallpapers, and other handsets related content but can also be used, and is actually used, to charge users for other services. For example a Directory Enquiry service might use it to charge for web originated inquiries. Read the rest of this entry »

Sybase 365 is running live services for its customers in Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa,  Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, Ukraine, USA, Vietnam.

There is a lot of talking about mobile payments. There is one mobile payment area where Sybase has been since November 2001: Premium SMS. Read the rest of this entry »

We refer to Standard Messaging when the end-user is charged at the standard network rate and the content provider as well as the service provider does not get any direct revenue from the messages. Here are a few real-life examples:

• An European receiving an MT won’t be charged
• A North American receiving an MT will be charged as per their price plan as end-users are charged for both receiving and sending MT in this zone.

As you can see in the second example the end-user was charged however if they got an unlimited data plan then it might be all included. This is up to the subscriber contract with this operator but the most important is that the message was delivered trying to keep the cost as low as possible for the end-user, the cost of sending the message being born by the content provider in the most common case. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever wondered what is happening when you send a text message to your friend? Let’s see how that works.

First you type the message on your phone then you press the magical key, the green one. What happens next?

Well, that’s pretty simple indeed.

1. Your phone sends the message to its SMSC – Short Message Service Centre.
2. The SMSC does a query to the HLR. Basically it is asking: do you know this phone number? If yes, could you please tell me where its MSC – mobile switching centre – is?
3. Once it receives the answer it is sending it “directly” to your phone. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to my first blog entry.

Content is the key. So here is what this blog is going to be about:

1) Sybase Enterprise Messaging News.

All the news of Sybase 365 Enterprise Messaging Platform: new features, new operators we have reach to, new countries, new services, major platform upgrades, etc.

2) The basics

What is Mobile Messaging? What do you have to do to launch a service in a country? How Messaging works?
I will explain, or re-explain, the basics of messaging as well as local specificities and regulations.

3) Maybe some news

That will not be my main focus but if there is any interesting news I’ll share it with you and give you my opinion about it.

If you are interested in the Mobile Messaging space I would recommend that you follow Bill Dudley as well as Diarmuid Mallon who are both focusing on a similar area however with a slightly different angle.  And don’t forget to add us to your RSS feed or twitter!
Bill: twitter, blog.
Diarmuid: twitter, blog.

My twitter http://twitter.com/bcatelin

I hope you’ll enjoy reading this blog and please follow me on twitter if you do so.