The Vodafone Messaging Hub will serve the SMS requirements of Vodafone’s over 400 million customers worldwide, as well as be offered as a service to other MNOs and aggregators looking to transit SMS on its network.
Vodafone officially launched its wholesale unit at ITW in 2013. Since then, it has consolidated its international voice business – bringing together the operations of Vodafone’s 27 independent companies – and in the process migrated all its voice minutes on to a fully IP
Phase two of the company’s strategy has been to apply the same thinking to its SMS business.
“The basis is very similar to our voice strategy: we are putting controls in place to ensure we have the highest levels of quality for our customers,” said Brian Fitzpatrick, CEO at Vodafone Carrier Services. “For the first time, we have an organisation that can take ownership of SMS on an international level.”
The move enables Vodafone Carrier Services visibility on SMS traffic entering its network through grey routes, enabling the company to prevent fraudulent activity. “It will allow us to shut down grey routes and improve service quality,” said Fitzpatrick.
This is particularly important as the company aims to support the huge growth in volumes of A2P messaging, which is estimated to grow over 31% by 2017 according to Ovum. “A key initiative is the firewall application that we are implanting across all our operating company, which gives us that visibility at a very granular level to see where SMS is originating and entering our network,” Fitzpatrick added. “We are taking an active role to protect our 400 million plus customers.”
Vodafone Carrier Service is presently deploying the SMS hub across its operating companies, and the service is already active in the UK and Turkey. Testing is expected to be completed in its remaining markets in the coming weeks.
