Australian standards slow m-commerce via SMS - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Australian standards slow m-commerce via SMS

By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia
April 16, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Australian-standards-slow-m-commerce-via-SMS/0,130061791,120264616,00.htm

Australian prepaid mobile subscribers are unlikely to be able to top up their phone card via SMS any time soon, despite Automated SMS Mobile Prepaid Top-Up Solution soon to be unveiled by Malaysian start-up QuickNet Com.

-Here in Australia, m-commerce type transactions are governed rather more strictly than in some other countries, for example banks have been loath to look at solutions that do not utilise a minimum of 128bit security which is not achieved with SMS," Lee Dalton, general manager of Logica Mobile Networks, said in an e-mail to ZDNet Australia.

Telstra agreed that there are "a lot of complex issues" with how m-commerce with SMS will actually work and said it was still in the talking phase concerning its implementation.

-We're looking very very closely at m-commerce and how SMS is one of the service delivery channels we can use, billing is just a part of that. We're talking to a whole range of different companies and banks," a Telstra spokesperson said.

The country's second largest telecommunications carrier, Optus, was more blunt when questioned about the possibility of topping up pre-paid via SMS. -No, it is not an option we are currently exploring here in Australia," a spokesperson said.