TORONTO-Canadians sent more than 710 million person-to-person text messages from their mobile phones in 2004, up from 352 million during the previous year, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. The group said Canadian text messaging volumes reached 95.5 million, or more than 3.4 million per day, for the month of February 2005.
Canada introduced intercarrier text messaging in spring 2002. This was followed less than a year later with the introduction of cross-border intercarrier text messaging with the United States. CWTA said Canada’s wireless carriers soon will complete arrangements to introduce full intercarrier multimedia messaging service.
Messaging company InphoMatch Inc., now part of Mobile 365, said it delivered almost 2 billion U.S. text messages in the first quarter of 2004, up from 650 million messages in the first quarter of last year. The company said it delivered more than 4 billion intercarrier short message service messages in 2003. InphoMatch, along with partners VeriSign Inc. and Ztango, manages the intercarrier text messaging industry in the United States.
Intercarrier MMS services are just beginning in the United States, with Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and Verizon Wireless, the two largest U.S. carriers, recently establishing intercarrier MMS service.
