U.S. Mobile Users Hit by SMS Craze
2/4/2002 Author: Elizabeth Biddlecombe, Communications International
U.S. mobile users are using SMS with increasing enthusiasm, according to figures from mobile operators in the country.
The country's second largest mobile operator, Cingular, reported on last week that traffic from text messages based on Short Message Service (SMS) has increased more than 450% since the summer of 2001 and by 50% since October alone. A release heralding the news attributed the growth not just to messages sent from mobile handsets but also SMS messages sent to email, sent as ringtones and during games.
Ted Theologis, Managing Partner and Lead Analyst, at the Arena Intelligence Group estimated that 400 million messages were sent in December compared with the 30 billion forecast worldwide.
He estimated that growth since the summer was around 40% across the industry. "Personally I think that SMS will dominate in the U.S. as it has in the rest of the world," he said.
Alexa Graf, spokesperson for AT&T Wireless, the first U.S. mobile operator to announce SMS interoperability back in November, said that messaging has increased by 30% over the December holidays. "We are seeing definite growth in this sector," she said.
AT&T Wireless announced Thursday that it is launching a mobile version of AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM) in conjunction with AOL. This is a reminder that U.S. mobile users can choose from a range of mobile messaging methods including email via WAP and mobile Instant Messaging. However Ted Theologis was disparaging about both compared to SMS. “There is no beating [it] for simplicity," he said.
The U.S. market has been held back to an extent, by the lack of SMS interoperability between carrier networks. However this will change over the year. Theologis predicted that Voicestream would launch the service 'pretty soon' and, he told Total Telecom, "I imagine Verizon will introduce it over the next six months."
However he added that since "not many people know that you cant send messages to other carriers", there is instantly cross-network traffic once interoperability is enabled. Once it becomes common knowledge that messages can be sent to any mobile user, "You will see a crazy effect," he predicted. "At the end of the year 40% of messaging will be intercarrier," said Theologis.
Alexa Graf at AT&T Wireless corroborated this view. "Though we just introduced the ability to send messages "cross carrier" at the end of November...about 30% of messages that originated on our network [go] to other carrier's customers."
Another hindrance to the take up of SMS is the fact that not all handsets support two-way messaging. However this will likely change as users upgrade to phones that support the new wave of data-ready mobile networks, that use Java for clever new applications, and are E-911 emergency compliant.
"80 percent of phones being sold now do have two way messaging," said Ted Theologis, "and the average user changes their phone every year. With the pace of development, people feel they have a stove as opposed to a microwave and so are upgrading
