DUBLIN, Ireland-One application driving the increasing amount of data traffic on mobile networks is short message service (SMS), which allows phone users to send a message from one handset to another. But while SMS is undoubtedly a useful service-and can reach subscribers in areas where minimal network coverage would not sustain a voice call-it has its limitations.
Anyone who has tried to send a text message from their phone knows just how long it can take to write the most basic message, with several keystrokes often required to produce a single character.
As a result, software firms have been working on programs that combine the efficiency of SMS with the ease of using desktop machines. Once such company is Dublin, Ireland-based Quattro Computers, developer of SMS Now!.
Launched in early 1997, SMS Now! is described as a suite of programs used to facilitate and extend the use of SMS text messages to and from GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) mobile phones. Short messages can be sent to mobile colleagues through in-house e-mail systems by using a modem and dial-up connection.
A local area network (LAN) version of the program allows SMS to be sent from the Windows desktop across the LAN without needing e-mail and has proven more successful commercially than the dial-up version.
“The modem program was designed primarily to show that the technology worked in the longer term; the product is most valuable when used across a local area (fixed line) network,” said Conor Clissmann, managing director of HE Clissmann, which distributes the product. He admits that phone users still are less comfortable making data calls than voice calls.
“One of the problems we have faced with marketing the product is that many mobile subscribers don’t understand SMS, and those using older phones found it hard to read the messages,” said Clissmann. “Newer phones have simplified the process of using the service.”
In Ireland, SMS Now! also has suffered from the battle between the country’s two GSM networks, Eircell and Esat Digifone, which have placed less emphasis on informing users of the benefits of data services as they concentrate on signing up new subscribers. A further barrier is the fact that it still is not possible to send short messages from one network to another.
Because the networks had not established a dial-in number in Dublin, early SMS users were routed through Cellnet in the United Kingdom although they were dialing a local number.
However, this situation will soon be resolved with both Eircell and Digifone putting local access in place.
