Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, Inc (NYSE: SY), the global leader in mobile messaging services, and Syniverse Technologies (NYSE: SVR), a leading provider of technology and business solutions for the global telecommunications industry, today announced they greatly expanded their existing North America peering relationship with a new agreement for international SMS, providing subscribers with an even greater reach to countries and operators than ever before.
The peering agreement is beneficial to all parties - Syniverse, Sybase 365, the mobile operator community and, of course, mobile subscribers.
"The interconnection of SMS hub providers is an essential component of the GSMA Open Connectivity (OC) initiative," said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSM Association (GSMA), a global trade association representing more than 700 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and territories of the world.
"By allowing unfettered exchange of SMS messages between their companies, both Sybase 365 and Syniverse are taking a leadership role in showing how hub providers can work together to provide the world's mobile subscribers with seamless, end-to-end messaging," he said. "Through a combination of third-party service provider agreements such as this one and through the GSMA's OC SMS hubbing initiative, more SMS messages than ever before will reach their intended destinations."
Marty Beard, President of Sybase 365, said the new peering agreement enables the two companies to provide direct two-way SMS service for more than 400 global operators.
"Peering between hub providers is one of the key features that have helped build the global messaging community into such a ubiquitous ecosystem," he said.
When a subscriber is confident his or her SMS message will be delivered, everyone wins, said Tony Holcombe, President and CEO of Syniverse. "Operators will have happier customers who increase the number of messages they send, and operators will see less churn and an increase in messaging revenue," Holcombe said.
SMS has grown steadily in all markets in the world since the late 1990s and is now one of the key contributors to mobile data revenue for global mobile operators. In just the United States, for example, SMS volumes have more than doubled in the last 12 months with more robust growth expected.
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