Jim Manis, the global chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association, an industry trade group, insists the fear of mobile spam is unfounded because access to U.S. carrier networks is much more restricted than in Europe, which has hundreds of access points, making it harder to thwart spammers. There are only 10 such points in the United States, and aggregators – companies like MBlox and M-Qube, where Manis is a senior vice president – have greater control over the content that moves across the network.
Manis and Mehta both vow that U.S. carriers are serious about filtering spam and the strict regulatory process they've put in place will prevent results like in Europe. To launch a mobile marketing campaign, Manis explains, a company must file a brief with an aggregator explaining the message, short code, how it will be promoted and expected volume of response. The aggregator and the carrier, after a review, must approve it before a short code is authorized and made live.
Manis believes that ads on phones, when they do appear, will not be via SMS but WAP. "Advertisers will want a richer format," he says about an issue the industry still needs to settle. But that doesn't bode well for the industry, since even fewer people today use WAP than text messages.
Ask, the Jupiter analyst, estimates that about 18 million wireless subscribers use the WAP browser, with one-half of them accessing the technology once a week or less. "The opportunity is not large today, but it is one that is growing and effective for targeted campaigns" toward 18-24 year olds, three-quarters of whom have used SMS and one-third of whom have paid for a ring tone, she wrote in her report.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
