Next-Generation Messaging: Moving Beyond Legacy Short Message Service Centers

The SMS craze has taken hold in North America and is a rapidly growing global phenomenon.

SMS messaging in the United States increased by 50 percent between the first and last half of 2005, according to CTIA, and it will continue to grow. According to John Delaney, principal analyst in Ovum’s consumer group, SMS texting traffic growth is projected to increase nearly 40 percent in North America during 2006.

Carriers are encouraging U.S. consumers to adopt text messaging by offering bundled packages, promoting content like music, pictures and videos, and billing via SMS. They also are linking SMS messaging to popular television shows such as “American Idol,” which encourages fans to use text messaging to vote for contestants. During the show’s 2005 season, audience members sent 41.5 million text messages, three times more than they did in the previous season.

Beyond simple text messaging, SMS is expanding to mobile-to-application, application-to-mobile and application-to-application services like televoting, telemetry and mobile marketing. There is also the rise of multimedia SMS applications such as mobile IM and services that link text messaging with voice services.

These newer forms of messaging create additional revenue opportunities for operators, but not without challenges.

Today, SMS network architectures are built on “store-and-forward” short message service centers (SMSCs) designed to handle relatively predictable traffic created by simple person-to-person text messaging. Unlike simple texting, applications such as televoting create large spikes in signaling traffic, which can strain the capacity of legacy SMSCs and create network bottlenecks.

Possible solutions are to deploy additional message centers or to expand signaling bandwidth for adding extra capacity to support new SMS applications. However, neither approach is economically viable in today’s fiercely competitive market.

Instead, carriers are looking to take control of their SMS networks, replacing or fronting their legacy SMSCs with a more robust “networked SMS solution.” Networked SMS solutions are modular, which enables advanced messaging services without costly network over-engineering or overhaul. With this approach, carriers can grow capacity and capabilities incrementally or create a complete, end-to-end SMS solution.

The key functionality and benefits of networked SMS solutions include:

Greater control. Advanced network routing improves SMSC and network resource utilization and performance by routing messages directly to their destination, rather than sending all SMS traffic to the SMSC, as legacy solutions currently require. Networked SMS solutions can distribute the remaining traffic evenly across multiple SMSCs. This approach reduces consumption of signaling resources during high-traffic periods, avoiding overloads on the SMSC.

SMS security. Rules-based filtering and advanced anti-spoofing features help operators thwart even the most advanced spam techniques such as message content and address randomizers, spoofing, flooding, viruses and phishing.

Real-time data management. Enhances network performance and quality of service. Networked SMS solutions will present SMS data visualized per source and destination application, network and country, including successful and erroneous messages. Operators can compare message rates with network performance and identify problems before they hinder service delivery.

Pre-paid billing. Extends market and revenue opportunities to prepaid subscribers. The application should support real-time billing, late billing and refunds for messages that cannot be delivered.

Message storage. Enables flexible delivery options beyond the capabilities of today’s SMSCs and maximizes signaling resources during heavy traffic periods.

Integration with IMS-based networks. By adopting a networked SMS solution, operators are better positioned to provide SMS capabilities seamlessly, including delivery receipts, message waiting indicator control and over-the-air programming, to devices using either SS7-based signaling or SIP-based signaling, transparently to the subscriber.

Deploying Networked SMS Solutions

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An example deployment of a networked SMS solution includes the following network elements:

• SMS Router – identifies and eliminates bottlenecks and wasted mobile switching center capacity with advanced load balancing and throughput control
• SMS Hub – monitors and controls SMS application traffic
• SMS Firewall – inspects SMS message content from any network or IP connection using advanced filtering screens, shielding networks from spam attacks and address spoofing
• SMS Statistics – delivers real-time data on SMS usage and network performance
• Prepaid SMS Billing Controller – enables real-time charging and optional refunds of SMS transactions, using transaction logging to provide a complete audit trail and interfaces to virtually any billing system
• SMS Message Store – functions as an active storage platform with adaptive delivery schemes

The Future of Messaging in an IMS Environment
Future messaging solutions will evolve beyond networked SMS to support networked multimedia (MM) and IM applications in SIP and IMS architectures. These networked MM-IM solutions will provide secure, access-independent, end-to-end message delivery service that supports all types of media – picture, text, audio and video.

The solutions also will provide easier conversational IM experiences for interactive environments such as chat rooms and conferencing.

As SMS services evolve to incorporate next-generation, multimedia applications, operators need to look beyond legacy SMSCs to address the strain on network capacity and resources. A networked SMS solution allows mobile carriers to cost effectively increase capacity and the support advanced capabilities consumers demand.

 
Ronald De Lange is president and general manager of the Network Signaling Group at Tekelec. He can be reached at Ronald.Delange@tekelec.com.

CTIA www.ctia.org
Ovum www.ovum.com
Tekelec www.tekelec.com

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