Help protect the SMS

Despite the SMS's amazing longevity and ability to adapt to a range of personal and business communication needs over the last two decades, it is not immune to misuse that may result in devaluing it as a communications channel. This is why it is imperative that businesses and consumers fight to maintain the integrity of SMS messaging, or risk losing it due to inboxes overflowing with spam.

There needs to be support for the country's already very good regulatory framework.

Dr Pieter Streicher is MD of BulkSMS.com.

The value of the SMS, both to businesses and consumers, is that it is instantly received and often immediately acted upon. SMSes are on the increase while phone calls are on the decrease, thanks to this immediacy combined with the asynchronous nature of SMS. An SMS doesn't demand an immediate reply, although it is likely to happen, unlike a ringing phone or a beeping instant message.

In fact, ironically, mobile instant messaging has become so persistent and invasive that people have resorted to switching off the beeping notifications and instead rely on SMS to initiate instant messaging chats with friends. This fits into a consumer trend towards cutting down the mobile noise to avoid negatively impacting their work and lifestyle.

Unfortunately, if unscrupulous companies abuse the SMS channel, it could suffer the same fate: with a deluge of unwanted marketing communications, people could also switch off the sound of SMS notifications, rendering the channel unusable for legitimate business communications. This would impact negatively on the sending of all application-to-person (A2P) SMSes, especially mission-critical alerts and notifications.

In fact, this happened in India in 2011, where all A2P messaging was affected due to a government attempt to curtail the extraordinarily high levels of spam SMS messages Indian cellphone users were receiving. For now, South Africans face far less spam SMSes than Indians do, even though SA's A2P market is mature by worldwide standards. South Africans receive on average 10 A2P SMSes per month.

Typically, there are two ways to reduce spam over SMS: raising prices or via regulation. While the former is what was needed in India, where SMS prices are extremely cheap, I'd argue against this for South Africa. The thinking behind raising SMS prices is that it impacts the return on investment of the spammers - but in South Africa SMS prices are high enough for this already to be the case. Any price increase will only benefit the operators, it certainly will not benefit businesses that will pay more for SMSes, and this will likely reduce their use of SMS services, resulting in consumers receiving fewer legitimate SMS alerts.

In South Africa, I'd argue there needs to be support for the country's already very good regulatory framework - in SA's case, a self-regulatory system via the Wireless Application Service Providers' Association (WASPA). As a starting point, businesses should ensure their SMS lists are permission-based, opt-in databases so that they themselves aren't sending SMS spam unintentionally.

Secondly, the WASP industry needs to take a long-term view that ensures the continued innovation of the SMS channel, rather than just looking to make a quick buck through flouting current industry regulations. These actions impact negatively on general consumer opinion on the merits of the industry through the unscrupulous actions of a few players.

Thirdly, industry self-regulation is itself hugely effective, as it is nimble enough to adapt to changing technology, industry developments and challenges. The industry, businesses and consumers should actively support this self-regulatory approach over other attempts to manage the mobile messaging market.

Consumers play an important role in alerting WASPA to suspected spam by lodging complaints with the regulator. WASPA is able to follow up on complaints via the WASP and insist senders show where they sourced the recipients' details. In the past, consumers might have been frustrated by WASPA being unable to follow up with complaints that originated from non-WASPA members. Currently, almost all A2P SMS messages can be traced to a specific WASP.

The bottom line is that if SMS spam increases, it degrades the integrity of the channel for all users, eventually resulting in the demise of SMS messaging. However, if the channel is used legitimately, ethically and innovatively, it increases the value of the SMS for all users.

The day consumers start switching off their SMS notifications marks the start of the end in SMS's usefulness as a valuable alert mechanism, which is why it is important for all stakeholders - mobile network operators, WASPs, technology providers, digital agencies, brands, civic associations and consumers - to fight the increase in SMS spam.