Four of Canada’s wireless communications providers have joined forces to develop an initiative that will enable inter-carrier, mobile text messaging for digital wireless customers across Canada.
Bell Mobility, Microcell Connexions, Rogers AT&T Wireless and TELUS Mobility have selected CMG Wireless Data Solutions to provide the technology for the service.
Short message service (SMS) allows mobile wireless customers to quickly send and receive short text messages to be viewed on their wireless phones.
Many wireless phones sold today in Canada have the feature, but the service is limited as customers can only communicate with other customers on the same network.
With this initiative, Canadian wireless users will be able to send and receive text messages to and from users of different networks by simply addressing it to the recipient’s phone number.
This service will be available to all text-messaging subscribers of these four carriers, coast-to-coast.
Inter-carrier SMS messaging has become a phenomenon in Europe and Asia.
In only two years, the number of SMS messages sent worldwide has grown from one billion messages per month to more than 16 billion messages per month.
The continuing growth of SMS demonstrates that the visual message is becoming as popular as voice, say analysts.
“The explosive growth of SMS seen in Europe has been limited in North America largely due to technology barriers,” said Mark Quigley, research director, Yankee Group Canada.
“In the past, mobile-to-mobile SMS messages in North America were restricted by incompatible technologies in use by the independent cellular operators,” Quigley said.
“This agreement removes those barriers by bridging the incompatible networks, representing North America’s first inter-carrier, multi-network mobile text messaging initiative.”
CMG Wireless Data Solutions is a division of CMG, which is headquartered in London and Amsterdam.
It is a global supplier of messaging, mobile Internet, and customer care and billing solutions for the wireless industry.
