A purely technological cure to SMS spam looks unlikely to hit the market until late 2001, while October is slated as the earliest possible date for an industry-agreed draft code of practice specifically designed to tackle the problem.
Still, telco industry analyst Paul Budde says the wait is better than relying on government intervention. According to Budde, -big-booted" government regulation should not be necessary if carriers provide an effective solution on their own.
An effective solution, to Budde's mind, is one that enables the user to easily control the type, and source, of information downloaded via SMS onto their phone.
-There should be a system in place for the user to say to the service provider: 'This is what I want. This is what I don't want.
-It should be a one-button system," he said.
-The user should be in the drivers' seat, not the government."
However, an anti-spamming handset function is still far from market reality, according to Telstra SMS products executive Rob Saviane. Saviane said there was no -industry-wide or GSM-specific piece of technology" that carriers could use to automatically stamp out bulk SMS messages before they hit users handsets.
SMS technology was -primitive" in relation to other messaging technologies, making it more difficult for the carrier to automatically monitor, he said.
He said Telstra was currently developing a handset function that would allow users to identify the sources of bulk SMS messages and screen future messages from the same source. Telstra aimed to bring that function to the consumer market in late 2001, he said.
Saviane admitted that a more effective, and more immediate, measure to tackle the problem would be an industry-wide code of practice related to SMS spam.
A working committee set up by the telco industry's privately-funded regulation body, the Australian Communications Industry Forum (ACIF), will commence a study into SMS spam in February, with a final report slated for release in October.
ACIF CEO Johanna Plante said the committee report was expected to include recommendations for an industry-wide code of practice for mobile carriers related to the spreading of wireless spam.
The report would include recommendations on whether the industry should call on government overseer the Australian Communications Authority to intervene. If the ACIF committee recommended ACA intervention, the industry could see the code of practice introduced as late as 2002, she said.
Budde's and ACIF's moves to sidestep government intervention may see the local carrier industry skipping one ponderous step already taken in the US.
Last week, the first bill related to tackling spam on wireless devices was aired in US Congress. The bill invited criticism from some US analysts, who complained that outlawing senders of wireless spam messages would encourage carriers to relax development of inbuilt anti-spam technologies.
My approah to any SPAM whether via SMS, email or letter box junkmail is to "blacklist" that organisation from my list of companies I wish to deal with, no matter how good their product is.
If we all adopted this approach, perhaps unsolicited messages may disappear as companies learn that people do not want unsolicited advertising.