SMS Transit

With the rapid expansion of the mobile community in terms of subscribers, networks and technologies, making SMS a truly global service with user experiences similar to international voice calling has become a complex issue which many mobile and fixed operators consider to outsource.

Unlike roaming where a single roaming agreement per country would be sufficient to guarantee worldwide roaming, SMS interworking requires the establishment of interworking agreements with every single operator in all countries.

The Belgacom ICS SMS Transit service complements the established set of bilateral SMS agreements (ex. : GSMA AA.19 for GSM operators) with a single interconnection to reach an extensive list of destinations, preserving consolidated procedures of accounting, charging, invoicing and settlement in adherence to GSMA SMS Hubbing recommendations (AA.71).

By connecting to Belgacom ICS' SMS Transit, network operators gains global SMS coverage, including non-roaming partners and non-GSM networks with clear quality parameters, such as:

Delivery Receipt Integrity (to the user or to the network)
Transparency (which network did sent or receive the SMS)
Full 2way (recipient subscriber can independently send and receive SMS)
MNP or LNP support

Besides SMS connectivity and SMS billing issues, operators are today struggling to protect their customer base from “SMS Hackers” and Shadow SMSC's injecting unwanted/unsolicited SMS traffic into operator networks.

Belgacom SMS Transit incorporates a concept of SMS Firewall, which, in combination with the Belgacom ICS Signalling service, provides protection against spamming and unsolicited messages. The SMS Firewall consists of the following modules:

White/black listing of sending SMSC's
Consistency checks of Originating Address SMS field
Barring of “suspect/malicious” short code or alphabetical range in the A number
SMS correlation at MAP level
Restriction of allowed destinations per mobile operator
Emission & reception blocking for individual subscribers based on MSISDN numbers
Real-time volume monitoring per SMS connection
Pro-active intervention in case of abnormal traffic pattern
Persistent storage of traffic to external database
Anti-spamming over SMPP/IP limiting content occurrences per source

SMS exchange through the MAP/SS7 or SMPP/IP protocols with very high delivery success ratio

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) or Local Number Portability (LNP) support

Delivery Receipt Integrity with charging upon SMS delivery towards end-users

Worldwide numbering plan management

Seamless separation of interworking SMS from roaming traffic

Extensive range of monitoring & filtering capabilities against spamming

Black/white listing capabilities on Calling Global Title, Calling and Called Numbers

SMS Filtering capabilities extended up to a single MSISDN number

Carrier-grade architecture based on cluster pairs deployed in different geographical locations

Scalable Platform with built-in redundancy to reach 1000’s of SMS/seconds

On top of fully owned state-of-the-art, secured and reliable global Signalling infrastructure

Carrier-grade SMS interworking service dedicated for Person-to-Person communications (P2P)

More than 680 SMS destinations reachable

More than 300 full 2-way destinations with possibility of return traffic via Belgacom ICS

Access to destinations previously unreachable including China, Korea and Japan

Complete US & Canada full 2-way coverage including LNP and interstandard support

Interstandard capabilities through interworking amongst GSM technologies, iDEN, TDMA, CDMA, fixed and limited mobility networks

Centralized SMS protection against SMS spamming and unsolicited/harmful SMS

Outsourcing of GSMA AA.19 interworking agreements

On-line reporting for continuous traffic visibility with statistics on service performance and detailed daily/weekly/monthly usage reporting

No additional complexity thanks to “Soft Interconnection” principle and seamless separation of SMS interworking from roaming traffic (GSM operators)

In line with GSMA Open Connectivity requirements and latest AA.71 recommendations

Our dedicated multilingual SMS Team, with in-depth knowledge and extensive experience in the field, is on board 24/7. A dedicated Project Manager will ensure a quick and smooth implementation of the service.

Next to the real-time performance monitoring with pro-active intervention in case of abnormal traffic patterns our on-line tools provide continuous traffic visibility with statistics on service performance and detailed usage reporting. Above a persistent storage of IP and signalling SMS-related traffic is in place for in-depth troubleshooting and problem solving.

SMS TRANSIT