Short Codes (Premium Rate SMS)

Overview

A Premium Rate SMS is a 5 digit short code (e.g. 31941) that carries a standard or premium rate charged to the sender of the SMS. Using a short code allows businesses the functionality to compile databases, generate sales leads and create revenue.

Channel Mobile offers a wide price band of Premium Rate SMS (PRSMS) numbers across South African mobile phone networks.

There are two forms of short codes:

Dedicated
A dedicated short code is a unique number that belongs to one business only. For example, Channel Mobile own the short code 31941.

Shared
A shared short code is a number that is shared between several businesses that use a specific and unique keyword to identify which business each campaign belongs to. For example,

On the short code 33369 Channel Mobile use the keyword “INFO” and ABC Motors use the keyword “WIN”. Both keywords operate on the short code 33369.

After your customer sends a SMS to the short code, a reply or Message Terminating (M.T) SMS is immediately pushed back to the sender confirming that his/her mobile originating (M.O.) SMS was successful and received. An email notification is also forwarded to the campaign administrator notifying them of a new entry.

The revenue generated by the SMS is shared between the Network Operator (Cell C, MTN and Vodacom) and the WASP (Channel Mobile in this case).  In turn we pass on a majority of the revenue share we receive, back to our customers after the MT message deductions.

The Short Code rate bands are as follows:

R0.50
R1.00
R1.50
R2.00
R3.00
R5.00
R7.50
R10.00
R15.00
R20.00
R25.00
R30.00

Features

Short Codes can be used to

The M.T. SMS can include additional product information or advertising for your business or service. For example, you could include a URL in the reply SMS that directs the recipient to a mobile website, hosted content like video clips or static images.

Additional Functionality

In addition to emailing the inbound SMS to the campaign administrator we are able to push incoming SMS replies to a URL of your choice using HTTP POST/GET. The SMS reply will be forwarded as an XML string to the URL.

HTTP Get:

http://yourdomain/page.aspx?XMLDATA=<XML><RECEIVE_RESPONSE><SMS_RECEIVE> to=”+31941″ from=”+27830000000″ eventDate=”2009-11-17 06:01:22″>WIN Laptop<SMS_RECEIVE><RECEIVE_RESPONSE><XML>

HTTP Post:

<XML><RECEIVE_RESPONSE><SMS_RECEIVE> to=”+31941″ from=”+27830000000″ eventDate=”2009-11-17 06:01:22″>WIN Laptop<SMS_RECEIVE><RECEIVE_RESPONSE><XML>

You need to return NO DATA (blank page with no script tags) should you receive the push successfully. If the XML cannot be delivered to its destination, a maximum of 5 re-try attempts will be delivered every 30 minutes.

Support

The management of campaign replies is covered in our API located at http://sg1.channelmobile.co.za/api/cmap.htm

If you would like to start a short code campaign, or require assistance on a current campaign, please feel free to contact our help desk on 0860 104 671 or support@channelmobile.co.za for assistance.

Author: channeladmin on May 7, 2012
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