SMS messaging to mobile telephones is becoming increasingly popular and is causing a billing headache for European carriers, but Australia's three main mobile operators predict that the medium will continue to grow, but without the need for a billing re-think. Reports from the UK show all four of the main operators are restructuring SMS billing and are limiting the number of messages a customer can send and receive.
British mobile carriers BT Cellnet, Vodafone, Orange and One2One have already begun to limit the number of messages their customers can send, and some major tariff changes will be introduced in late February, with rumors circulating that free messaging could disappear completely.
Similarly, Australia's operators are all reporting healthy SMS growth. -In the last 12 months we have seen significant growth, to put it into contexts we are delivering 3.2 million messages," a spokesperson for Telstra said. Three local carriers report that the most popular usage of SMS messaging is mobile-to-mobile, where as the UK and Europe is seeing a growth in Internet-to-mobile messaging.
Optus claims it has seen a 600 percent increase in mobile messaging in the last quarter and delivers 10 million text exchanges a week. -There has been explosive growth, especially on special days such as Christmas day, New Year's Eve and New Years day, over eight million mobile-to-mobile messages were sent," a spokesperson for the mobile department said.
The British mobile operators are changing the way they bill each other for carrying text messages and considering their options for charging Internet companies such as Lycos, Excite and Genie who all offer Internet-to-mobile messaging.
Although Australian SMS traffic is growing, none of the operators contacted by ZDNet felt this situation would soon arise. -We would consider it's in its growth stage and it is well accepted in the market at five text messages for the cost of one call," an Optus spokesperson said. Rob Saviane, senior product manager for mobile messaging at Telstra doesn't believe pricing is really the issue with SMS, -I don't see the need to take this sort of initiative. We feel comfortable that SMS is incremental to voice calls," he said. Vodafone said it has no plans to change its pricing structure as a result of the growth.
