More and more businesses in all industry verticals have started employing SMS messaging for their customer relationship management. From two-factor authentication (2FA), high-volume alerts, notifications, appointment reminders, to all sorts of SMS marketing campaigns, SMS has become the most popular way to reach out to customers and gain their attention. This messaging is also known as application-to-person, or A2P messaging. Others call it enterprise or business messaging. No matter how you name it, what is important here is that SMS is now the most desired communication channel among brands. Industries such as banking, financial institutions, e-commerce, healthcare, and entertainment are widely using A2P SMS.

Each industry has specific terminology. The SMS business is no exception. We have decided to share with you 50 most commonly used SMS industry terms in the form of an SMS glossary.

As technology continues to advance and with OTT players constantly on the rise, certain services and software inevitably become obsolete. How should telco businesses and service providers evolve to stay relevant and cope with the ever-changing trends? What are the market gaps that will surface when 5G and giant cloud techs finally hit the trade? The editorial team at Telecoms World Asia had the opportunity to interview Fabrizio Salanitri, the CEO of HORISEN. He will be sharing about the evolution of the telco industry, the challenges that communication service providers face today, and what to look forward to at Telecoms World Asia 2020.

Dear partners, we are attending this year's LATAM 2019 GCCM in Sao Paulo, 20-21 August. Please meet with our sales representative Ever Zalazar to discuss new business opportunities. Schedule your meeting: sales@horisen.com or contact him directly: ever@horisen.com Carrier Community (CC) is a global telecom club established in 2008. It organizes annual global carrier community meetings in LATAM America since 2015 for its members. We are excited to announce CC is organizing its 5th annualLATAM 2019 GCCM – on 20-21 August 2019 in São Paulo at the Hilton Hotel, Brazil. HORISEN is delighted to be a CC member and to participate in this extraordinary event. We look forward to meeting our partners and new potential clients.

In recent years OTTs have disrupted telecom industry causing a downturn in P2P SMS volumes. Operators’ core revenues have decreased, with both P2P SMS and voice traffic going down. Hence, MNOs and voice players have been searching for a new cash cow, which they found in a fruitful A2P SMS, also known as business messaging. Although popular chat applications like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger have been threatening the messaging business, something interesting has happened. Not only that SMS survived the initial shock, but it flourished! SMS traffic is now growing because the use of SMS has become prevalent among enterprises. Moreover, OTTs have become the biggest SMS traffic generators, as millions of OTP messages (One Time Password) are sent each day. This is a phenomenal opportunity for mobile operators to leverage this new OTTs’ SMS revenue stream and compensate part of their profitability loses.

On June 17 this year Google announced it is officially rolling out its RCS Chat in the UK and France. In the UK, the service officially became available on 28 June for some users. After this news broke, RCS became the main buzz word. However, RCS or Rich Communication Services is not a novelty. RCS protocol dates back to 2007. In 2008 GCM Association took it over, while in 2016 it became an agreed standard when GCMA published the Universal Profile on RCS. The Universal Profile is a set of features and technical enablers built to facilitate global operator deployment of RCS. RCS is a new messaging standard aimed to enable the industry to deliver a consistent and more advanced texting experience for billions of consumers worldwide. The goal is to have most smartphones with a built-in advanced messaging that features read receipts, the capability to send high-resolution images and videos, typing indicators, animated stickers, better group texting, etc. Similar to popular chat apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and others. In other words, RCS is the protocol intended to supersede the SMS. This protocol should provide improved messaging. To put it simply, RCS is enriched SMS.

The UTW 2019 countdown has officially begun! Visit us at booth E3100, Hyatt Grand Hall to meet with our sales team and discuss how our A-Z Telecom and Marketing software suite will add value to your business. ITW (International Telecoms Week)is the annual meeting for the global wholesale telecoms industry, providing a platform for 7,000 delegates from 2,000+ companies and more than 135 countries to meet together and network. HORISEN is attending ITW for several years in a row, and we are more than delighted to be amongst the exhibitors this year too! We invite you to our booth E3100 to meet the team and learn all about our exciting, cutting-edge telecom software which will propel your business to success. As aleading SMS software provider, we are thrilled to be able to help others scale up their operations. Learn all about HORISEN’s one-of-a-kind telecom and marketing bundle designed specifically for SMS wholesale and retail business.

With the rise of the super-fast 5G and cloud technologies, the world is on the brink of always-on connectivity, which will facilitate business automation. It will impact and revolutionize every industry, creating a brand new ecosystem of fully-connected devices and technologies. Such technology entails safe M2M and M2P communication. The safest means of communication today is the SMS. Texting is the most reliable way to send any information due to its ubiquity, simplicity, and safety. The mere fact SMS messaging is alive for more than 20 years, and is still thriving, proves all the above. A significant advantage of SMS is that it reaches users anywhere in the world, even when mobile data are switched off. The SMS message will undoubtedly be delivered as SMS doesn’t rely on the Internet and is the only technology harmonized between all mobile operators in the world. Consequently, business messaging, commonly referred to as A2P, is booming in the past few years. It’s no wonder then to see other advanced technologies such as IoT deploying it.

We are proud to announce we won two prestigious GCCM awards at this year's event in Berlin. This is the third successive year HORISEN has been winning these notable awards. We have been awarded Best SMS Platform Provider Wholesale Solution and Best Innovative Software Provider, the former being given to us the third year in a row.  GCCM award for the Best SMS Platform Provider is awarded to a service provider for innovative SMS software platform solution launch. The prize is awarded to Mobile Operator, SMS Aggregator or Telco software solution provider that managed to launch a software solution addressing the complex needs of SMS market entrants. The award for the Best SMS Platform Provider is in HORISEN's hands for the third year in a row, proving our competence, know-how, and dedication to providing the best software to all our clients.

Dear friends, HORISEN is attending Telecoms World Asia 26-27 March in Bangkok! Let's meet there to discuss which new business opportunities you'll unlock when using the HORISEN SMS Platform for SMS trading. Find us at the booth D5! This is our first attendance and we are really looking forward to meeting new people, new prospects and having fun at this reputable event. For over 20 years, Telecoms World Asia has been an annual platform for leading international carriers, operators, authorities, and suppliers to meet, learn and create fruitful business partnerships for the betterment of wholesale revenue and growth.