Short Message service center

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

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 op

Companies

SMSC vendors include Acision (Previously known as LogicaCMG), Airwide Solutions, Bharti Telesoft, Comverse Technology, Ericsson, FEELingK, Huawei, Jinny, Lucent, Intervoice, NetXcell, Nokia, Motorola, Oksijen Teknoloji, Pyro, Parkyeri, SS8 Networks, Symsoft, Tanla Solutions, Tekelec, Tele DNA, Teligent AB, Telenity, Telsis, Unisys, WaveNET, WiFi Networks Pvt Ltd. Other companies working on SMSC development include Newbay, Pharos Consulting (Pty) Ltd.

Recently a new wave of telecom technology companies have introduced an alternative to the traditional SMSC device. One of these is Openmind Networks, an Irish-based provider of next generation messaging routers.

Features of SMSC

As SMSCs have been around about 10-15 years, many Tellcos want to integrate messaging infrastructures to IP networks that are designed to carry messaging traffic. 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 Openmind Networks, 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, and extras, such as antispam functionality.

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 has been most popularly linked with American Idol and similar competitions around the world. American Idol, as one example, has seen more than sixty million votes cast via SMS. 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, 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 9, 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] The director of the Asia-Pacific region at Airwide Solutions, discussing the issue of dealing with peak usage versus 'baseline' usage, 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 for large periods of time, usage will never be near that peak and sit unutilized, prompting many smaller operators to see purchasing a smaller capacity SMSC as a cost-saving measure..[4]

See also

• Short message service technical realisation (GSM)
• IS-41
• SMPP