Free Website Content - How Quickly Can We Reach Out and
Touch Someone?
How Reliable are Cell Phones?
Cellular phones and pagers are part of the "now" generation,
instant contact, anywhere at any time. People are looking
for convenience, comfort and security. The question is how
instantaneous and reliable is the contact?
Talking with someone is the main use for a cell phone,
yet due to poor reception how often do calls not go through,
or important calls "dropped" due to flaky coverage? Let
us not forget, that in a time of tragedy, lines were congested
and the resounding "all circuits busy" messages were heard
from coast to coast. There is certainly room for improvement
if you want to reach out and touch someone.
The alternative to voice communication is traditional
text messaging, enjoyed by the young as SMS, a 'hip' communication
method, and the older as the tried and true paging, a trustworthy
means of communication. A carrier receives pages or text
messages via a traditional dial up modem or Internet connection
to their terminal, and then broadcasts the messages over
their network to the appropriate wireless device. How instant
is sending a text message? The answer might surprise you...it
depends.
Traditional means of sending text messages is surprisingly
reliable and fast. However, many cellular carriers, wishing
to merge technologies while keeping costs down, have opted
to utilize email technology to send text messages. Why not,
an email is nothing more than a text message, using the
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). On the surface this
sounds like a great idea, nearly everyone has email access,
and the use of the Internet streamlines the sending of messages.
What is often overlooked, is the fact that email was not
designed to be time sensitive. There can be significant
delays and an instantaneous receipt can be lost when sending
email to a pager or cell phone. Text messages sent via the
email protocol SMTP could take a more scenic delivery route.
While in many cases, receiving messages in a timely fashion
is not critical; some industries require and benefit from
the receipt of urgent messages. It is therefore important
to realize and make a distinction between the protocols
that are designed for instantaneous communication and those
that are not.
If sending messages immediately to a cell phone or pager
is required, more reliable protocols are available. When
sending text messages, via a modem, the Telocator Alphanumeric
Protocol (TAP) is extremely dependable, albeit slower due
to the modem dialing. If sending messages with a high-speed
Internet connection use the newer time sensitive Internet
protocols: Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) and Wireless
Communication Transfer Protocol (WCTP). If your carrier
supports these protocols they are the better options for
sending important messages.
If carriers understand the "now" generation is about speed
and reliability, customer satisfaction will improve. Text
messaging is a reliable and useful communication method,
especially since voice is not always convenient or possible.
With public awareness and urging, carriers will increase
their offerings of text messaging protocols. Carriers should
offer email or SMTP, but they must also support time sensitive
protocols, regardless, of whether the protocols are older
such as TAP or newer such as WCTP.
Resources -
Carriers supporting SNPP - http://www.notepage.net/snpp.htm
Carriers supporting WCTP - http://www.notepage.net/wctp.htm
About the Author -
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net
a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless
messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can
be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com
, and http://www.small-business-software.net
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This article may be used freely in opt-in
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the issue or a link to any online posting would be greatly
appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
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