Telsis has unveiled what it claims is the world's first and only complete solution for the rapid creation, roll-out and management of custom advanced SMS services throughout their entire life cycle.
Surveys carried out for Telsis in three major European cities are said to have shown up to half of phone users want to do more with SMS and would use and pay for advanced services.
The Telsis new era SMS solution is claimed to offer mobile operators a low-risk, low impact way to meet and grow this demand, exploiting a complete technology and services model to build, roll out and manage advanced SMS services that create differentiation and generate new revenues – and do it in days, rather than months or years, says Telsis.
The Telsis model has four-tiers, first of which is the foundation of Telsis' SMS Router.
Tier two, which Telsis debuted at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, is Telsis Advanced Services, an application-hosting platform pre-loaded with a suite of core SMS services and able to run many more. The two new final tiers of the Telsis solution are ServiceCentral, a service creation platform, and FrontRunner, a complete consultancy and technical assistance programme.
ServiceCentral uses the same Intelligent Network service creation technology that Telsis has widely deployed in voice networks. It enables Telsis or its partners to rapidly build the most complex of fully custom service flows, then edit them to smoothly transition applications from live service trials to full roll-outs. Usability is a key element in new service acceptance by subscribers, so ServiceCentral enables a range of options for phone-user control including SMS and Web interfaces, plus dedicated control by external systems for enterprise applications.
The FrontRunner programme lets operators supplement on an as-needed basis in-house marketing, engineering and operations teams with Telsis specialists. Together, they conceive, market-test, build, roll out and manage any number of advanced SMS services, exploiting to maximum advantage, lowest risk and lowest cost the power of the model's technology layers.
"For some time operators have been telling us that they see the revenue growth and churn reduction opportunities offered by advanced SMS, but are fearful of the perceived risk to the stability of their networks and frustrated by the competing demands on in-house resource," says Telsis CEO Simon Brown. "With our new era solution we're showing a practical, affordable and low-risk route to achieving major competitive and bottom line pay-backs through advanced SMS."
Says Declan Lonergan, vice president of Yankee Group's consumer research group: "SMS is a core element in what subscribers look for when choosing a mobile service, but until now operators have only had one lever to pull to make their offer more attractive, and that's price. This is a sure sign of a commoditising product. The net result is that in some markets SMS revenues are flattening off despite volumes continuing to climb. The emergence of more advanced SMS schemes gives operators the opportunity to compete on service, utility and innovation."
The solution will be shown publicly for the first time next month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.