MELBOURNE, Australia-The explosive growth of short message service (SMS) in Australia has prompted the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) to consider reserving new telephone number ranges for SMS. At the moment, users can send and receive SMS messages using 04 digital mobile numbers.
The proposal is aimed at assisting businesses and carriers to generate additional revenue through new SMS services, such as weather forecasts, examination scores and competitions. A new number range could also be used for multimedia message service (MMS) to send and receive photos, music and video.
“The staggering growth in SMS has led to innovative applications and services being introduced,” said ACA member Allan Horsley. “Businesses are looking at the advantages of offering these applications and services on numbers other than current digital mobile numbers.”
The ACA was, at this stage, seeking industry feedback. In Australia, about 300 million SMS messages are sent a month, worth nearly A$75 million (US$41.6 million) in revenue for carriers.
