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Deliver cellular messages with SMS

SMS: A shortcut to providing information services to cell phones

By Sonal Bansal and Gaurav Pal, JavaWorld.com, 03/30/01

The mobile communication device market is growing exponentially. A survey by Gartner Dataquest predicted that worldwide mobile phone sales will have totaled 412.7 million units in 2000, a 45.5 percent increase from 1999. (See Resources for a link to the survey.) This growth, coupled with the Internet's evolution into a Web of services, has fueled demand for Internet-enabled services that wireless devices -- particularly cell phones -- can readily access. Many technologies can be harnessed to provide value-added services over a cell phone, including Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and Short Message Service (SMS).

Developed by the WAP Forum, WAP is a standard for providing Internet communications to wireless devices like cell phones, PDAs, and pagers. WAP was expected to be the predominant standard for providing ubiquitous mobile Internet access; however, several reports indicate that WAP is unlikely to succeed in the short- to medium-term. Because of insufficient infrastructural investments in gateways, WAP-enabled handsets did not coevolve to support this service. There are lingering performance concerns as well. In a survey conducted by the department of mass communications at Tamkang University (Taiwan), over 80 percent of WAP-enabled cell phone users expressed dissatisfaction with WAP. (See Resources.) The reasons cited included speed -- rather, lack of it -- expense, and lack of content. Those factors might lead to a dead-on-arrival situation with WAP, which directly affects application developers. It makes little sense to invest in a technology that might not survive.

SMS is a viable standard that offers a platform for delivering wireless information services. SMS cannot match WAP's wireless browsing capabilities, but it can meet the demand for point-to-point message-based services. SMS-enabled information services become even more attractive when you compare the large base of installed SMS-enabled cell phones to the paltry number of WAP-ready phones. According to a March 2000 report on internet.com -- "Companies Seek to Bridge 'WAP Gap,'" (see Resources for a link) -- over 400 million legacy (non-WAP-enabled) digital wireless phones are in use today.

Banking on SMS's productivity, we propose a server-side Java-based solution that provides information services to cell phones via SMS and Web form scraping.

What is SMS?

Developed in 1991, SMS is a globally accepted wireless service that enables the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers and external systems like email, paging, and voice mail systems.

With SMS, an active mobile handset can receive or submit a short message at any time, even if a voice or data call is in progress. SMS also guarantees delivery of the short message by the network. Temporary failures due to unavailable receiving stations are identified, and the short message is stored until the destination device becomes available.

Initial applications of SMS focused on eliminating alphanumeric pagers by permitting two-way general-purpose messaging and notification services, primarily for voice mail. As technology and networks evolved, a variety of services were introduced, including interactive banking, information services such as stock quotes, integration with Internet-based applications, and email, fax, and paging integration. In addition, integration with the Internet spurred the development of Web-based messaging and other interactive applications such as instant messaging, gaming, and chatting.

 

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