APPLICATIONS FOR SMS MESSAGING/IMPORTANCE OF MESSAGING

There are many different kinds of SMS applications on the market today and many
others are being developed. Applications in which SMS messaging can be utilized
are virtually unlimited. We will describe some common examples of SMS
applications below to give you some ideas of what can be done with SMS
messaging.

1) Person-to-Person Text Messaging

Person-to-person text messaging is the most commonly used SMS application and
it is what the SMS technology was originally designed for. In these kinds of text
messaging applications, a mobile user types an SMS text message using the keypad
of his/her mobile phone, then he/she inputs the mobile phone number of the
recipient and clicks a certain option on the screen, such as "Send" or "OK", to send
the text message out. When the recipient mobile phone receives the SMS text
message, it will notify the user by giving out a sound or vibrating. The user can
read the SMS text message some time later or immediately and can send a text
message back if he/she wants.

A chat application is another kind of person-to-person text messaging application

that allows a group of people to exchange SMS text messages interactively. In a
chat application, all SMS text messages sent and received are displayed on the
mobile phone's screen in order of date and time. SMS text messages written by
different mobile users may be displayed in different colors for better readability,
like this:

Me: Let's have a

meeting at 10 am
tomorrow to discuss
the details of our next
SMS text messaging
application.

Tom: OK.

Alan: I have another

meeting at 10 am. I
suggest having the
meeting at 11:30 am
tomorrow. What do
you think?

2) Provision of Information

A popular application of the SMS technology other than person-to-person text

messaging is the provision of information to mobile users. Many content providers
make use of SMS text messages to send information such as news, weather report
and financial data to their subscribers. Many of these information services are not
free. Reverse billing SMS is a common way used by content providers to bill their
users. The user is charged a certain fee for each reverse billing SMS message
received. The fee will either be included in the monthly mobile phone bill or be
deducted from prepaid card credits.

3) Downloading

SMS messages can carry binary data and so SMS can be used as the transport
medium of wireless downloads. Objects such as ringtones, wallpapers, pictures and
operator logos can be encoded in one or more SMS messages depending on the
object's size. Like information services, wireless download services are usually not
free and reverse billing SMS is a common way used by content providers to bill
their customers. The object to be downloaded is encoded in one or more reverse
billing SMS messages. The mobile user who requests the object will be charged a
certain fee for each reverse billing SMS message received. If the mobile user is
using a monthly mobile phone service plan, the download fee will be included in
his/her next monthly bill; if the mobile user is using a prepaid SIM card, the
download fee will be deducted from the prepaid credits.

4) Alerts and Notifications

SMS is a very suitable technology for delivering alerts and notifications of

important events. This is because of two reasons:
 1. A mobile phone is a device that is carried by its owner most of the time.
Whenever an SMS text message is received, the mobile phone will notify
you by giving out a sound or by vibrating. You can check what the SMS text
message contains immediately.
2. SMS technology allows the "push" of information. This is different from the
"pull" model where a device has to poll the server regularly in order to check
whether there is any new information. The "pull" model is less suitable for
alert and notification applications, since it wastes bandwidth and increases
server load.

Some common examples of SMS alert and notification applications are described
below.

5) Email, Fax and Voice Message Notifications

In an email notification system, a server sends a text message to the user's mobile
phone whenever an email arrives at the inbox. The SMS text message can include
the sender's email address, the subject and the first few lines of the email body. An
email notification system may allow the user to customize various filters so that an
SMS alert is sent only if the email message contains certain keywords or if the
email sender is an important person. The use cases for fax or voice message are
similar.

6) E-commerce and Credit Card Transaction Alerts

Whenever an e-commerce or credit card transaction is made, the server sends a text
message to the user's mobile phone. The user can know immediately whether any
unauthorized transactions have been made.

7) Stock Market Alerts

In a stock market alert application, a program is constantly monitoring and

analyzing the stock market. If a certain condition is satisfied, the program will send
a text message to the user's mobile phone to notify him/her of the situation. For
example, you can configure the alert system such that if the stock price of a
company is lower than a certain value or drops by a certain percentage, it will send
an SMS alert to you.

8) Remote System Monitoring

In a remote system monitoring application, a program (sometimes with the help of

a group of sensors) is constantly monitoring the status of a remote system. If a
certain condition is satisfied, the program will send a text message to the system
administrator to notify him/her of the situation. For example, a program may be
written to "ping" a server regularly. If no response is received from the server, the
program can send an SMS alert to the system administrator to notify him/her that
the server may be hanged.

9) Two-way Interactive Text Messaging Applications

SMS messaging technology can be used as the underlying communication medium
between wireless devices and servers in a two-way interactive text messaging
application. For example, search engines are two-way interactive text messaging
applications. Let's say there is a dictionary search engine that supports queries in
SMS text messages. It may operate like this:

 To find out the meaning of the term "SMS text messaging", you can type
"find: SMS text messaging" in an SMS text message and send it to the
search engine's phone number. After receiving your SMS text message, the
search engine parses it and finds that it begins with the command "find" and
follows by the words "SMS text messaging". The search engine then knows
you want to find out the meaning of the term "SMS text messaging". So, it
sends a text message, which contains the meaning of the term "SMS text
messaging", back to your mobile phone.
 If the search result is very long and it cannot contain within a single SMS
text message, the search engine adds "Page 1 of 2", "Page 1 of 3", etc, at the
end of the reply SMS text message. The search engine also creates a session
using your mobile phone number as the session ID and stores the term that
you searched for (i.e. "SMS text messaging") in the session object.
 To request the second page, you can send a text message with the content
"page: 2" to the search engine's phone number. After receiving your SMS
text message, the search engine parses it and finds that it begins with the
command "page" and follows by "2". The search engine then knows you
want the second page of the search result. It retrieves the term that you
searched for last time from the session object and finds that it is "SMS text
messaging". The search engine then sends a text message that contains the
 second page of the search result for the term "SMS text messaging" back to
your mobile phone.

Many other two-way interactive text messaging applications can be built using a
similar way. For example, a company may want to build an SMS messaging
application to enable its employees to query the corporate database while they are
working outdoors.

10) SMS Marketing

SMS messaging can be used as a marketing tool. An example is an SMS newsletter

system. After signing up, the user will receive SMS text messages about the latest
discounts and products of the company. If the user has any questions or comments,
he/she can send a text message back with the questions or comments in it. The
company may include its phone number in the SMS newsletter so that the user can
talk to the customer service staff directly if he/she wants to do so.