Get the Message, Eh?

Like children stuck in the back of the family's ride as it careens toward a vacation destination that seems light-years away, North American wireless users eager to exchange intercarrier short messaging service (SMS) text messages have been asking of carriers: Are we there yet?

The classic response is: soon.

But unlike frazzled parents aching for a moment's peace, wireless carriers in both the U.S. and Canada actually seem to mean it. In late January, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) announced SMS interoperability between the four major Canadian carriers — Bell Mobility, Rogers/AT&T, Telus Mobility and Microcell — and the Big Six in the U.S.: AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Cingular, Nextel and T-Mobile.

SMS has traditionally lagged in North America because wireless services are provisioned over several technology platforms. In contrast, European carriers agreed early on that GSM — which had SMS capability built into it from the beginning — would be the standard platform. Consequently, while Europeans could exchange SMS messages from the beginning — regardless of carrier — wireless customers in North America only could exchange them with users who subscribed to the same carrier, which put a giant crimp in the service's commercial potential.

That changed in April 2002 when the CWTA brokered a deal with the four major Canadian providers to route SMS messages through a gateway manufactured by Addison, Texas-based LogicaCMG Wireless Networks and positioned in Toronto.

When a subscriber sends an SMS message, it first goes to a service center maintained by the subscriber's carrier. The service center determines whether the recipient's 10-digit number is one issued by the carrier. If it isn't, the message is sent downstream via dedicated IP circuits to the LogicaCMG gateway, which then routes the message to the appropriate receiving carrier's service center. The message is then sent to the recipient's handset. The gateway executes all of the necessary translations and billing settlements, and packages each message in a way that is consistent with the parameters set by the receiving carrier.

Results have been nothing short of spectacular. The CWTA said the volume of SMS messages sent within Canada has grown by 98% since last April, with more than 20 million messages sent in November alone. The biggest reason for the initiative's success is that the four carriers worked out their differences before finding a gateway provider, according to Adel Bazederghi, director of wireless product development for Bell Mobility.

“Getting everybody to agree beforehand on what the objectives were, and setting expectations among the four carriers, went a long way in avoiding the bickering,” Bazederghi said. “Everyone knew what was at stake.”

About three months after interoperability was achieved in Canada, the CTIA accomplished a similar goal in the U.S. working with the Big Six, though the path was slightly different. Instead of using a single common gateway, each carrier found its own gateway provider. Nevertheless, the routing function in the U.S. works pretty much the same as it does in Canada. And the results have been equally impressive. According to the CTIA, 1 billion SMS messages were sent by wireless subscribers in the U.S. in June 2002, compared with 30 million in June 2001.

Those numbers should jump some more as interoperability among the major carriers spreads throughout North America. And it's about time, according to William Dudley, LogicaCMG's product manager.

“When I call you on the phone, I don't know who your carrier is, and I don't care,” he said. “The same thing should apply to text messaging.”