SMS in Australia vs the US

OK, for those that aren't really sure, I just want to give some background here just so you can appreciate where I'm going from on this one.

Our business model is focused generally around business SMS as a core product, and premium rate SMS as a secondary product - we do it, and have a number of customers, etc... however it's fair to say that business SMS is really our bread and butter.

Over the last year and a half, the one thing I have seen which is fairly common is that customers looking to take SMS on within their business generally don't really have a good understanding of things such as MSISDN's or what we refer to as virtual numbers - a virtual number is really the same as a mobile number except it's not attached to a SIM card - it allows for two-way communication as the networks route the messages back through that path.

This is the same for many countries - probably the most similar would be the likes of New Zealand and the UK.

Also, we as a country are subject to abiding by anti-spam laws which effective say you can't send a marketing SMS to someone you don't know (i.e. buy a marketing list), and you need an easy opt out on the service - certain parts are a little less clear with regards to implied consent, etc... but you can definitely send informational messages, such as "don't forget your appointment" and that kind of thing.

Typically the most common uses for SMS are internal communications like server alerts or an easy way to contact external staff members and so on. The other use are reminders, whether that be from your accountant about your BAS statements, restaurant bookings, job alerts and so on - and all of these are perfectly legitimate - and generally are very helpful as well as acting as a cost saving to the business which is always good news.

The US however are somewhat different.

Probably one of the most challenging things to communicate through to people is the difference between Australia and the US.

The US is a lot more conservative when it comes to SMS in an attempt to protect the greater community from unwanted SPAM - putting this into perspective it's not uncommon for a US business to receive 10-12 telemarketing calls a day and with changes in technologies businesses are constantly attempting to find new ways to sell their product that would otherwise be unguarded.

Because of this certain things aren't available in the same way (there are work arounds, but they are something generally really open to US consumers, but I'll talk about that later). MSISDN's for example aren't available as we know them here, instead messages need to be sent with a vanity number or shortcode which have been applied for through Neustar and it takes 3 months instead of around 4 weeks for a premium shortcode in Australia (depending on your timing).

People with US SIM cards can send SMS messages via the web and their phone account, however as far as I'm aware it's not really a robust enough service for a business sending any real volume out to go with.

However, that said, which is the reason for the vanity numbers in the first place, by law you are not allowed to send an SMS from application to consumer without the vanity number - and for those who have tried, the delivery rate is really poor. It's because about 20% of SMS messages into the US are blocked by US networks due to SPAM filtering - especially if someone tries to send something like 100 - 500k worth of messages it raises all kinds of bells.

The other thing is that US handsets have to subscribe to receiving the messages as well, which is another hindrance, although they do allow soft opt-in's there are penalties for being a little naughty sending messages to people who don't want them.

Generally speaking I don't think it's a bad thing, in that there are rules that you can work to, and it doesn't take a creative genius to work out ways in which you can still achieve want you want to do - like stick a clause into your T&C's that they may receive these messages, they can always unsubscribe if they don't want to receive them.

Because we're all people and concerned with ourselves and the ways we would like things to work first before thinking about the rest of the community I know that people wishing to setup server alerts, and contact staff members like roaming engineers about breakdowns and certain plants probably think it's ridiculous - and in their circumstance they might be right, but it's about having one set of rules that encompass everything and working to the minority in order to please the majority.

Instead I think the biggest burden is two fold - it's the setup time it takes in order to get a dedicated vanity number, and the costs involved. truth be told, the actual costs of sending messages are pretty much on a par with sending messages within local countries through local networks.

The only thing in their defence I would say is look at your market size - 300 million people isn't quite the size of China or India, but if you were serious about it, I think it's probably a fair statement to make that actually US citizens have more disposable income on average to spend on the products/services you are selling.

They are 15 times the population of Australia, 5 times the population of the UK and 75 times the population of New Zealand, so it's reasonable to expect operating costs will be higher - higher setups/monthlies on the SMS service, higher advertising costs online, and in various publications - but also a bigger opportunity to make even more money than in other countries so before you shy away, I would say really think about the possibilities rather than the bare costs alone - as they say you need to spend money to make it.

Cheers,
C