Internet Service Provider - Challenges and Opportunity
Skip contentThe business of providing Internet access to individual and corporate users is becoming increasingly competitive. For this reason, ISP’s are looking at new features and product offerings that will differentiate them in the market, and reduce customer churn. A typical ISP model offers most fixed services free. By including ValueFirst Messaging ( www.vfirst.com ) SMS Service in its service portfolio, ISPs could charge for the added convenience and efficiency of mobile data services. Many advanced services can be delivered via existing networks today, and at a later date can be migrated to GPRS or UMTS. This approach enables retention of valuable premium-users. By "going mobile" ISPs gain significant benefits, quickly, without major expansion and investment in ISPs current infrastructure, enabling them to gain benefits from going "mobile" in a very short period of time.
Benefits of using ValueFirst SMS Service
- New feature set => Additional revenue
- Enhanced product offering => increased competitive advantage
- Reduced customer churn => reduced cost
- Additional advertising => increased eyeballs leading to additional revenue
Example:
Typical SMS Service as provided by an ISP (e.g. MySMS from ABC ISP):
MySMS allows its customers to send SMS messages from the ABC ISP website or through a downloadable client software from the ABC ISP website:
ABC ISP is pleased to announce the introduction of MySMS for all ABC ISP users, a new addition to ABC ISP users control centre to send SMS messages to your friends from ABC ISP’s web site or from ABC ISP client software
By logging into MyAccount, you will now see our current release of MySMS. From this you can purchase SMS credits, currently priced at X paise per message, which for many is cheaper than many mobile networks on many tariffs, with the added bonus of being able to use your keyboard and not a mobile keypad to type SMS!
Once messages have been written they will get delivered within seconds to all networks. Messages can appear to come from your nickname or pet name, or if you wish to be traditional, from your mobile number. Added benefits are that you can alter the return mobile number details to any mobile of your choosing, so the system can act as a central system for all the family.
The ability to send large number of SMS via a customisable address book is also present as a feature in ABC ISP’s client software.
You can also send your emails received as SMS!
Our client software is an ideal tool for people wanting to tell all their friends about any event in one go, or perfect for businesses looking to inform all their customers about product promotions or general marketing.
Through the client software, you can also continue to get our banner messages when you are not using our portal.
ValueFirst SMS Service - Description
- Send SMS directly to any mobile phone using a PC connected with an ISP.
- Receive critical emails as SMS when you are not connected.
- Receive sundry billing/payment/breakdown information over SMS.
Both single messaging and multi-messaging communications facilities are available, creating a dynamic tool for cost saving communications, helping improve performance of the customers of ISP.
What is Short Messaging Service (SMS)
Short Message Service, usually called SMS, is a Text Message Service, supported by GSM and other mobile communications systems. It is the ability to send and receive text messages to and from mobile telephones.
The text can comprise of letters or numbers or an alphanumeric combination. SMS was created as part of the GSM Phase 1 standard. Each short message is up to 160 characters is length when Latin alphabets are used, and 70 characters in length when non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic and Chinese are used.
Why is SMS effective?
SMS has evolved as a global communication facility with GSM network spanning in over 200 countries and more than 400 operators offering mobile services under its umbrella. In addition many CDMA operators also have embraced SMS in their bouquet of services. With SMS being the talk of the town, many technological initiatives have been taken keeping this highly cost-effective, globally approachable and secure means of communication directly in sync with the interest of the customer. Since, there is a network sharing understanding among most of the mobile network operators around the world, SMS becomes an obvious choice for expediting 2-way text based communication irrespective of the geographical location. In addition, there are several unique benefits of using SMS as a medium of communication:
Cost-effective
As a communications medium, SMS is the most cost-effective way of communicating to any mobile audience. The fact that SMS can be sent out to large groups of recipients in a manual or automated manner further means that fewer resources are required to action the communication.
High Reach
The number of Internet connections is a fraction of the the number of mobile connections. It means that more people can be reached via SMS than with, for instance, e-mail communications. Currently, there are over 1.2 billion mobile connections in the world.
Immediacy
An SMS is typically delivered within seconds. Because message is pushed to the handset by the delivering network’s SMSC and does not rely on the recipient retrieving it from a server, it is an extremely reliable means of pushing time-sensitive messages to recipients.
Automation
Should an organisation need to integrate SMS with its existing (legacy) database environments, automating SMS is easy. ValueFirst, for instance, allows for generic protocol integration such as e-mail, HTTP, SMPP, XML and windows application systems to its Servers.
Reliability
Since the time SMS was launched, it has excelled as an acceptable communications medium. With increase in reliability, end-to-end solutions providers such as ValueFirst are committed to achieving 100% reliability. Hence, SMS is getting widely accepted as a new business communications channel.
Message Reporting
SMS can be saved on customer’s existing IT infrastructure, and can also be logged with a full message report by the ValueFirst Servers. Messages can be searched based on date, content, destination number and product or ID employed.
Personal and Discreet
One SMS - one recipient. SMS messages are sent to individual mobile handsets where it is personal and aimed at that specific individual, allowing for compelling one-to-one communications. SMS is different from other kinds of mass media, in that it is direct and private.
About the Author:
This article has been contributed by (Mr.) Vijay Shukla, Country Head, ValueFirst messaging India ( www.vfirst.com ). Vijay has over 10 years of industry experience management consulting and mobile data services. He can be contacted at vijayshukla@yahoo.com
