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A 'Short Message Service Center (SMSC)' is a network element in the mobile telephone network which delivers SMS messages.

Contents

Operation

Companies

The Features of SMSC

Popular applications of SMSCs

References

See also

External Links

Operation

When a user ''sends'' a text message (SMS message) to another user, the message gets stored in the SMSC which delivers it to the destination user when they are available. This is a store and forward operation. The SMSC usually has a configurable time limit for how long it will store the message, and users can usually specify a shorter time limit if they want.
A message may also come from an application, for example voice mail server sending voice mail incoming message alerts. Mobile operators allow businesses to interact with their SMSC to submit the messages in bulk. From SMSC point of view, such applications are called SME (Short Message Entities). In this case the SMSC is responsible for locating SMSC of the destination user and submitting the message there.

Companies

SMSC vendors include Acision, SS8 Networks, Tanla Solutions, Jataayu, Bharti Telesoft, Intervoice, Comverse Technology, Nokia, Huawei, Unisys, Airwide Solutions, Jinny, Parkyeri, Oksijen Teknoloji, Telenity, Teligent AB, Lucent, Motorola and Symsoft. Other companies working on SMSC development include Newbay,Pyro SMSC, Pharos Consulting (Pty) Ltd.
LogicaCMG Telecom Products was purchased for £265m (US $525m) in early 2007 by private investors Atlantic Bridge Ventures and Access Industries, and is now known as Acision. LogicaCMG was formed by the merger of Logica and CMG on January 1st, 2003.

The Features of SMSC

As SMSCs have been around about 10-15 years, many cellcos want to integrate messaging infrastructures to IP networks that are designed to carry messaging traffic. [SMS routers replacing SMSCs as cellcos edge toward mobile messaging 2.0], April 2007, Mobile Messaging Analyst. Also, mobile operators are looking to reduce costs and improve their networks' quality in order to maintain customer satisfication and reduce churn. As a result, mobile messaging infrastructure companies including Airwide Solutions, Comverse and Telsis are providing platforms that will have more efficient messaging delivery and capacity services with SMS routers that some SMSCs were unsuitable to deliver including group distribution lists, copying, forwarding and archiving messages, along with antispam. ^[1]

Popular applications of SMSCs

Some of the widely recognized solutions that have been implemented through SMSCs are applications such as tele-voting and sports alerts. Tele-voting was has been most popularly linked with American Idol and similar competitions around the world. Sprint and Acision enabled TV show American Idol to interact with a record breaking 60 million voters. As it becomes increasingly popular, so has the demand from mobile operators for more SMSCs and efficient delivery during "peaky traffic" periods has been a growing concern for mobile operators and their infrastructure providers. Often times, operators are not purchasing SMSCs large enough to handle the amounts of traffic that arrive in such a limited amount of time. In fact, on June 9th, 2007, riots broke out in Calcutta, India as a result of SMS text votes failing to be counted in the Indian Idol competition, thus taking the title from what the rioters believed to be the winner. [3] After this fiasco, infrastructure companies stated that operators need a messaging infrastructure that can balance the message load on the short message service centers. The director of the Asia-Pacific region at Airwide Solutions claimed that operators who can handle, for example up, to 10,000 messages per second at peak times would buy SMSCs costing about $10 million. But if the load is less, the operators may buy systems that don't have the capacity to handle big numbers of texts.[4]^[2]

References

1. [SMS routers replacing SMSCs as cellcos edge toward mobile messaging 2.0], April 2007, Mobile Messaging Analyst.
2. "Not Enough Capacity", The Inquirer. June 13, 2007

See also

★ Short message service technical realisation (GSM)

★ IS-41

External Links

★ SMSC-List

★ Discussion forum about SMS

★ Technical articles and solutions for SMS

★ How SMS Works