Sprint PCS said it will launch a new text messaging service in the coming weeks, a move that will allow users to fire off text messages without the need of a WAP browser.
Critics have long disparaged Sprint’s WAP-based text messaging service as clunky and slow. Under the carrier’s current messaging system, Sprint users must first launch their WAP browser, then input the message as well as the recipient’s address to send a message. Sprint’s new service will work much like the text messaging services of other carriers, which allow users to compose messages on their phones without a wireless Internet connection. RCR Wireless News first reported on Sprint’s plans in February.
Further, the new messaging service will allow Sprint users to send text messages to short codes, a procedure that is not supported by Sprint’s WAP-based offering.
“We will introduce that service later this year,” said Jenny Stevens, a Sprint spokeswoman. “And all the phones going forward will have that capability.”
Sprint already has been seeding the market with phones that will support its forthcoming text messaging system. The carrier’s new Nokia Corp. phone, its Treo 600 device and the new walkie-talkie Sanyo Corp. handsets will support the service once it is officially launched. Older phones will not support the new messaging system. Stevens declined to provide a more specific launch date, as well as the specifics of the service.
Stevens said all of Sprint’s future phones would support the new messaging service. She said Sprint would continue to offer its browser-based messaging service alongside its new text messaging service, and users would be able to choose between the two.
“You’ll have the option of doing it over the browser or doing it from phone to phone without launching the browser,” she said.
Although Sprint was included in the list of carriers that are supporting the newly announced short-code initiative, the carrier’s subscribers currently cannot use the service. The short-code program allows movie studios, TV stations and other companies to publish five-digit short codes, and mobile-phone users can sign up to receive messages from the companies by sending text messages to the published short code. Sprint customers cannot register for short-code services by sending text messages to the code; instead, Sprint users must log on to the carrier’s wireless Web site to access the short-code information.
Sprint said its new text messaging service will support short-code messages.
Sprint’s moves come at a time of major growth in the U.S. text messaging market. Last year the nation’s major carriers signed interoperability agreements, allowing mobile-phone users to send messages to subscribers of rival carriers. Prior to the agreements, wireless users could only send text messages to subscribers of the same carrier. And earlier this year, the industry took another major step in the messaging market with the launch of the short-code program. Such interoperability has been hindered partly by business and competitive issues and partly by technology issues, as the U.S. market is a melting pot of GSM, CDMA and iDEN network technologies.
