Ancient pager tech SMS: It works, it's fab, but wow, get a load of that incoming SPAM The infrastructure for text messaging is creaking. Not only does it need to be fixed, but it seems mobile operators don’t understand enough about their own systems to do it themselves. This is according to Louise O'Sullivan, CEO of mobile solutions firm Anam Technologies. She maintains that the problem that needs fixing lies …
Indeed, any spam filtering would be much easier at the sending end - anyone sending a message with 10000 recipients ought to have some kind of permission to do so since it's unlikely to be an invite to the pub to some mates. Why the receiving end would need to look is beyond me - same as with the postal service, Royal mail offer filtering at a cost to individual households while also charging the person sending the bulk mail for delivering it. I for one don't want to see this same situation on mobile networks where everything is much more traceable.
"...anyone sending a message with 10000 recipients ought to have some kind of permission to do so since it's unlikely to be an invite to the pub to some mates..."
No, but it could be a message to 7,500 or so mobile numbers that has to be sent in a hurry at around 5am to try and prevent wasted journeys through very very bad weather. A quick clean up to get rid of the 10 and 12 digit numbers in the database dump (don't ask) and then a queue of messages via a humble dongle. It worked. I didn't do the clever bit (dongle script).
We have much slicker systems hanging off the Intranet these days. Prior blanket permission could work I imagine.
But that is the problem Lusty, they are nabbing a legitimate access number from one of the GSMA members and setting up their own, unmonitored, SMSC and sending the messages out that way; so it looks like the SMS is originating from a legitimate source, if they can spot it in the first place.
That said, the last spam SMS I had was from O2 in 2008. A letter to their CEO saying that I was on call and needed the phone next to my bed, so sending me special offers at 2 in the morning was not going to get me to look at their offers favourably!
The first level of inter-carrier working engineers may not know the network in depth but I can assure you the next level do. This article looks pulled from a press release, it reads like a sales pitch. If a network and it's operators dont know MAP signalling, they deserve all the SPAM they get.
Yeah, I got a bollocking from my boss when I got back from holiday. Our bungalow was in a valley with no reception, so I would walk to the top of the next mountain once a day (with the dog) and check email and if there was anything urgent call the company.
When I got back, after 12 days, I suddenly got an SMS dated 12 days earlier from my boss... He accused me of having switched off the phone, even though I had been replying to emails and calling in to the company every 2 days on average...
If your boss is sending you text messages whilst you are on holiday (or, by extension, in the evenings, at weekends, at any time where you are not being paid to be at work), it is he that deserves the bollocking. I would be explaining to him in no uncertain terms that you are paid to work specific hours, and outside those hours, he should not be contacting you with work-related matters.
I would be explaining to him in no uncertain terms that you are paid to work specific hours, and outside those hours, he should not be contacting you with work-related matters.
I'd be damned annoyed if people didn't let me know about urgent work matters while I'm away, holiday or no. I'm still free to decide whether I want to do anything about them.
I know this is a difficult concept for many Reg readers, but not everyone holds the same opinion about every subject. Many here seem to think that a "holiday" is a sacred period of time during which it is an unforgivable sin to so much as think about work. There are, however, a few of us who think we should be able to do whatever we damn well please while on holiday, even if that includes keeping a hand in.
Is that many smaller networks don't perform any processing on inbound SMS messages from external networks. Instead, they dumbly respond to any old SRI that his their HLR. Most SMSC vendors do actually provide solutions to this (hint: if your SMS inbox isn't full of spam, your carrier is already using one of these solutions). The hard part is usually getting the switch vendor to play ball (assuming they're not also providing the SMSC, in which case your arse belongs to them).
So yeah, as per above, these are not the droids you're looking for; you may move on.
> The main expertise of telecoms companies is not telecoms, it is billing
Isn't this the solution (if they wanted one)? Tag all the messages with information about who you billed before you forward the SMS. Source-routing after the fact. That bypasses the CallerID spoofing dilemmas.
I recall reading somewhere that SMS messages get sent as part of the network synchronisation messages that keep your phone connected to the nearest base station. As such, there is no additional cost to the network for sending and receiving them, only in carrying them across the network, and passing them on to other networks. The cost to the telco of carrying the messages, as opposed to not carrying them, using the infrastructure which is already there, is as close to zero as to not matter.
Not quite, although you are close.
SMS messages get sent through the GSM control channel that normally handles the control plane traffic (e.g. call sent-up/tear-down, base station hand-over, et al). This implementation came about due to a historical oddity; basically when the GSM standards were first defined they discovered that they had some spare capacity left on the control channel so someone had the bright idea of defining a messaging service although "no-one would ever want to use it" (famous last words IMO); this is way SMS messages have such an odd maximum size - it reflects the message size of the GSM control channel.
You are right in that SMS transmission is more-or-less "free" to the network operators, their only costs is in maintaining the SMSC and the inter-operator links.
Most of the time, SMS is less intrusive than a telephone call, less bother than email and does not require "internet" connectivity. I think I read that, among yoof, telephone calls are rare, vastly exceeded by messaging, including SMS. Often, SMS will get through when the signal is too poor for a voice call.
It's also used a lot by banks and others to verify logins - one logs in, they send a number in an SMS, one types in that number and only now get fully logged in to the site.
Great for pikett: I really do not want a telêphone ringing for each automatic alert when a system is having problems. Good too for reminders. Not intrusive: still get SMSs while in a meeting, theatre ... (just turn off the beep and make it vibrate). Also useful for sending telephone numbers, addresses, ""I'm late, see you at 10" and so on.
Get timetable or weather information ...
No, rather disable the voice calls and internet. Oh, a pager, well, sort of but better, with MMS for when a picture or something is needed.
I assume the mass SMS distribution lists are via an email interface (used to write and manage such). But personally, I think I may have had just one or perhaps two spam messages since I first got a mobile, in the late 1990s.
> Most of the time, SMS is less intrusive than a telephone call, less bother than email and does not require "internet" connectivity. I think I read that, among yoof, telephone calls are rare, vastly exceeded by messaging
I'm not really yoof, yet I rarely make or receive calls. Looking at the log, it's about once every three weeks that I use the phone as a phone.
Everything else you say, my experience agrees with it.
AMBxx,
I doubt you can turn text messages off. You can however turn their notifications off, and remove the link to the text app from the home page of your chosen mobile OS. Hide it in a folder somewhere. Then hey presto: No texts.
Personally I don't like texts. But my Mum does, as do several friends (with a mix of smartphones and dumbphones) At work sometimes, people are in bad coverage areas and need information like addresses, which can be sent by SMS. On a smartphone it's as easy to input as email anyway.
As with any technology it's horses for courses. You use what gets the job done most efficiently, and get on with your day. Adults don't get dogmatic about their favourite platform...
Remove your ability to receive texts:
1) Get yourself an old phone with SIM only text memory or set your phone to store messages only on SIM.
2) Ensure auto deletion of old/expired text messages is turned off.
3) Never delete text messages that you receive.
4) Once your Inbox is full (10 on an old SIM or 40 (I think!?) on a newer one) - presto - no more SMS received!
Anam.ie's web page says "You could say that Anam has grown up with SMS.". But in fact the company was only set up in 2012. It seems to be separate from Anam Mobile, which was founded in 1999 and also seemingly has O'Sullivan as CEO. Both Anam Technologies (anam.ie) and Anam mobile (www.anam.com) resolve to the same web page.
According to Alexa et al, traffic to anam.ie is almost non existent, and the site (Drupal) is ranked at over 19 million. It is therefore dwarfed by the theregister.co.uk on 3700 and even my own wretched blog on 5 million. This story by el Reg will certainly give them a slashdotting (unless I have it all wrong - entirely possible). They also have a Twitter account but have not tweeted as yet and have no followers seemingly.
Nothing wrong with that though. It is great to see small/medium sized companies grow. And free coverage in the Reg is fine, so long as it is actually free. I don't agree with others that the article reads like an ad. It doesn't. It is just a little odd that El Reg would have a big story about such an as-yet small firm which has just started up and whose business is still so small.
When you start a company, your product is not really supposed to solve a problem. Your product is supposed to solve what your market PERCEIVES as a problem.
If they can't see the problem, it's either not there or it doesn't bother them. Effectively telling your potential customers "you're all too stupid to see this big problem you have" is a bit too bold of a sales tactic for my comfort.
Initially the networks allowed interworking by gentlemen’s agreement and an understanding that it was in everyone’s best interest to just accept and deliver messages.
Until 1999 the UK GM networks did not deliver messages from one network to another, you could only send a text to someone on the same network. They started exchanging messages between networks very reluctantly.
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