Are SMS providers using Australian networks to route messages?

This came up yesterday when I received a call from an existing customer who wanted to tell me he thought he was paying too much from us, and that he found another provider who was significantly cheaper that also used Australian networks to route their messages.

Significantly cheaper? Hmm, who could that be - I was pretty confident that our pricing was around the same levels as our competitors which offer locally routed messages. Oh it was The SMS Company (name changed to protect the alleged guilty) - "what locally routed messages? I don't think so?"
"Yes, through Vodafone" my customer said,
"Vodafone? Are you sure that's what they said?"
"Yes, they definitely mentioned Vodafone!"

This was quite upsetting, considering they offer messages as low as $0.05 how could this be? My first reaction was to call Vodafone and ask about pricing and what would it take to get pricing so low that we too could offer those levels? I held off on that,I did vent to one of my directors before having a moment of clarity - "use Google, Google is strong within you" a Yoda like voice said to me, so I did.

I Googled their claims regarding network coverage, xxx networks across xxx countries, and how about that 106,000 results I got, and every exact phrase match was to do with the same third party company - coincidence, I don't think so, it turns out that The SMS Company are aggregating off this third party who offer (as far as Australian are concerned) an offshore service and not a locally routed one.

I've already had a rant previously about the difference between onshore and offshore, so I don't want to go into it again, but to say use the old saying because it's a good rule of thumb "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" - in this case I'll refrain from shaming them, but it is sad that there are providers out there that will say about anything to get business and probably that's a good representation on the kind of business they are, and who they are.

So before buying into a spiel, Google their claims - this should give you a good indication as to what they're telling you is true or not.

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Is SMS killing the written English Language?

This blog came to me a couple of days ago after watching a bit of a documentary on the English language, and it talked about back in the day when Shakespear took the English language as it was then a new great language and crafted it into some memorable lines with his plays like "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players."

Since then, all we have tried to do is shorten the words we use, changing "of the clock" to "o'clock", "good day" to "g'day" and so on. But since the introduction of the internet, and subsequent chat rooms, things have been shorten even further so we can keep pace with conversations with either one or two hands depending on the nature of the conversation ;).

But really it has been the introduction of SMS that has really sped thngs up 2 a g8 r8, 2 da point ppl find it hard 2 read da msg!

Back when I was a kid, playing on my Super Nitendo, I remember my great aunt going on about how calculators ruin kids and game consoles are bad - which obviously speaking to any 30 something year old male, married or otherwise, they are not - and how kids were abusing the language, it's just a natural flow. In fact I would say that kids are the greatest users of any language, and are the prime movers for change in language which should be commended rather than dismissed as poor.

So is it killing the language? I'm not so sure, I think it's more the fact that as the world becomes faster in pace, and functions becoming more time critical that SMS is a language warming for one of a better term, and it's purely speeding up a process that was always going to happen like carbon in the atmosphere, this is an inevitable fact and it wouldn't suprise me in the years to come, this form of written language becomes a standard speak and something that is taught in schools!