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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