2.1.6 Mobile Phone SMS Review
The relative ease of use of SMS makes it possible for a user to learn how to send SMS easily. Schofield and Kubin (2002) argued that small devices could potentially provide better interface for finding information than through page browsing and other means. More than 160 billion SMS are exchanged each month in European countries (Mavrakis,2004), and according to Shelf (2006), 48.7 billion SMS messages were sent in the second half of 2005, which is up 50% on the six months before that. Nowadays, with 45 million short messages sent in the U.K. alone every day, a mobile phone that has the easiest interface for voice communication is likely to fail the user satisfaction test if it does not provide a reasonably good SMS interface (Gorienko and Merrick, 2003).
The major advantage of SMS is its cost effectiveness, and availability, as most individuals own phone.
In different parts of the world, several service providers offer mobile services which include SMS. Most times the cost attached to sending a SMS is relatively small, and most providers do not charge when receiving SMS. Sometimes, service providers give users certain amount of free SMS per month, which allows customers send and receive unlimited number of SMS messages. It is possible to acquire a special dedicated line that uses a custom rate for messages sent to the number; it is also possible to have a number as toll free, making it free for users to send SMS to the number. All these contribute to what makes SMS a really cost effective means of disseminating information.
Till today, especially in the developing countries, there still exists the problem of checking examination results as students still throng notice boards in anxiety. Although most universities, even those in the less developed countries now make examination results available on their websites. The level of internet availability in less developed countries is still low and quite expensive.
Even in the developed countries where most homes have internet access, SMS is still a faster and cheaper means of dissemination examination results as well as other information. Pramsane and Sanjaya (2006)], stated that universities can provide educational services based on SMS such as grade release, enrollment information, university announcement and internship opportunity. An advantage SMS offers is that students can receive valuable information on the fly without requesting for it.
The result checking system not only allows student to request for grades, it provides the result as soon as they as become available. This is done by pushing the result to the students (sending it to their phones), or working on a request sent from a student to produce the result (pulling). There are two methods of SMS widely used in applications; they are the PUSH & PULL. This application can either be used to push or pull messages.
A Push SMS application is one whereby a message is been sent from the application to the user.
It is a one way message. In other words, it is the mobile application (in this case, the SMS result checking application) that initiates a message. An example could be a school that automatically sends examination results to the students and their parents/sponsors as soon as the grades become available. The users do not request for the grades, do not take any action and are not charged for receiving the SMS. The SMS would be delivered to them in a matter of seconds regardless of where they are, as long as their mobile phone is within their network operator’s coverage.
A Pull SMS application on the other hand is one whereby a user sends a request and obtains a reply from the application. This is a full duplex scenario. An example is when a student requests for his/her grades for a recently concluded semester. SMS applications can be built as two kinds of services.
Independent Service
This involves using solely a mobile phone and the application server (the system running the SMS application). This option offers limited benefit, but it is easy and fast to setup. It does not require authorization of the service provider or connection to any third party SMS provider. The mobile phone uses a regular SIM card which has a normal phone number, and messages that originate from the phone attracts the standard cost or tariff.
Dependent Service
This involves having the application server connect to the service providers SMS Center (SMSC). It requires a constant connection to the internet as the application server does not require any physical phone/modem with a SIM card connected to it, rather it connects to a SMSC. When users send their request, it goes to the SMSC, which automatically forwards the message to the application server over the internet. This option provides added benefits, as they service provider can provide a special tariff and a dedicated line for the university. Here, the SMS application usually runs on corporate servers that are connected to the SMS network through specialized connectors and gateways connected to the SMS Center (SMSC) of mobile operators (Mavrakis, 2004). These servers are assigned short numbers instead of the traditional 10 or 11 digits mobile numbers. These numbers, also known as short codes are usually 4 to 6 digits long and are operator specific. Also, a premium fee (a fee other than the fixed rates for SMS) can be charged on these short codes; in other words, users would pay more for sending SMS to short codes. SMS uses the GSM special signaling channel instead of the voice channel and is therefore a very reliable media channel. Mavrakis (2004) identifies two types of SMS which can be classified by the origin of the message:
i. Mobile Originated (MO): SMS-MO is sent from a mobile phone and could be sent either to another mobile phone (such as when a mobile subscriber sends a personal message to another subscriber) or to a computer application that will process the message.
ii. Mobile Terminated (MT): SMS-MT is transmitted to a mobile phone. It also could be sent by another mobile phone or generated by a computer application (Adagunodo, Awodele, and Ajayi,2007).
