Choosing a business SMS provider

Business SMS 'Gateway' providers are responsible for:

• facilitating SMS delivery from businesses or organizations to mobile subscribers
• handling SMS responses from mobile subscribers back to businesses and organizations.

Which Gateway Provider is best for your SMS messaging needs?

While some business SMS gateways only manage gateway to mobile services (known as 'mobile terminated', or MT services), other providers are able to facilitate both MT and mobile to gateway services (known as 'mobile originated' or MO services).

Even if you only intend to send text or SMS messages now, it's still wise to look for a business SMS provider that offers the opportunity to receive them too. This gives your SMS messaging campaign more flexibility as it develops over time.

Business SMS messaging providers should also provide clients with a range of platforms from which to send SMS messages, including desktop and web-based software as well as APIs.

Types of SMS messages

The range of messages carried varies from provider to provider. They can range from standard SMS, to content delivery or audience orientated interaction SMS - as is used in television voting and polling.

Premium-rated Business SMS

SMS can be used to disseminate content to subscribers charged at a higher than standard SMS rate. Common premium-rated services include downloadable ring tones and televoting.

With premium business SMS services your organization can also take advantage of an ever increasing range of applications for text message services to deliver:

• MMS (multimedia) for entertainment based services
• news, weather and sports updates
• current finance and market updates and alerts.