New fines to block spam messages in UAE

TRA working with etisalat and due to block messages coming from outside the country as well

In an effort to minimize unwanted messages on your mobile phone and other e-devices, the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) has drawn up a fresh list of penalties.

According to a report in Emarat Al Youm, TRA will act upon complaints of consumers who receive marketing messages without their prior consent.

The TRA is also working with etisalat and du to activate monitoring devices to block all advertising messages coming from outside the UAE.

Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director-General, TRA, said a list of penalties have been finalised to minimise marketing messages send to mobile phones of residents.

Initially, the senders will be only warned. On repeated violation their service will be temporarily terminated and finally if caught again the senders will be fined and their service terminated permanently.

TRA has been receiving complaints from consumers about spam messages since long. Al Ghanim said, those who send marketing messages after the allotted time will be fined. Marketing messages are to be sent only between 7am and 9pm.

Residents can block messages sent from within the UAE by sending a text SMS to 7726.

He added that the TRA is currently working with etisalat and du to help block messages coming from outside the country as well.

Source: By emirates247.com on 25th March, 2013

Tanzania’s Healthy Pregnancy Text Message Service Reaches 100,000 Subscribers in 15 Weeks

SMS service is going into HEALTH CARE sector which bring more pregnancy awareness to the public in an easy way....

The unique healthy pregnancy text messaging (SMS) service reached 100,000 active registrants in March 2013. More than 4 million text messages have been sent to those who signed up for the free healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood information, since the launch late November 2012.

“Wazazi Nipendeni’ (Parents Love Me) is a national healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood multi-media campaign. The mHealth Tanzania Public Private Partnership strengthen this campaign by providing informative text messages and appointment reminders in Swahili at no charge for pregnant women and mothers of newborn babies up to 16 weeks of age. This service offers also free information to her supporters - such as husband, friends and family - and information seekers”, explains Sarah Emerson, Country Manager, mHealth Tanzania Partnership, CDC Foundation.

The Wazazi Nipendeni multi-media campaign includes promotion of the free text messaging service by listing the short-code on the campaign materials and instructs anyone interested in more information about healthy pregnancy to send the word ‘MTOTO’ (child) to the short-code 15001. Registrants receive instructional messages during registration, allowing them to indicate the woman’s current week or month of pregnancy (or the age of the newborn baby) during the enrollment process. “This process allows the recipients to receive specific text messages at the time the information is most relevant to them. The service registered an average of 7000 people per week. Healthcare partners such as the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation (EGPAF) and the Aga Khan Health Services - Joining Hands Initiative - play an important role by supporting the registration assistance of pregnant women at the healthcare facility level.

Eliza’s experience
“I found the text messages on my phone very useful during the period of my pregnancy”, says Eliza (29). This first-time mother was part of a group of women that gave feedback on the informative messages before the service started. She registered for the service as soon as it was launched in November 2012. “I was happy to receive the ‘Wazazi Nipendeni’ information about my pregnancy. I liked the helpful tips, including the importance of attending clinics regularly. I was able to learn about the need for testing and malaria prevention. I feel that it benefited me to know these things. I was able to go and deliver my baby safely since my baby was born healthy and without malaria. This service has also assisted my husband to better understand what I was going through during my pregnancy, so that he could be of greater assistance to me according to my needs.”

Eliza works as a housekeeper in Dar es Salaam and considers herself privileged when it comes to receiving information. She reads the newspapers and listens to radio. The housekeeper believes the service will especially be useful to women in remote areas as many have a mobile phone. “Many people, especially those living in rural areas, are not realizing how important it is to visit clinics”, she states. “They just don’t receive as much education and information as we do a big city. Newspapers are scarce there and not everyone has a radio. It also does not cost anything to get these text messages. So anyone can get the information from the Wazazi Nipendeni text messaging service. It will benefit many people, because it reaches all regions around the country.”

Government led initiative
Tanzania is a large country, it almost 900,000 square kilometers big. The country is approaching a population of 44 million. Current reports show that there are over 25 million mobile phone subscribers in our country. Tanzania registers the highest average number of text messages sent per month per subscriber in East Africa. The use of text messaging (SMS) doubled over the past few years to almost 5 billion messages in 2012. The mobile technology is therefore recognized by the ministry as a useful tool to offer crucial healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood information to even the most remote pregnant woman and her supporters.

Source: By Virtual Strategy Magazine on 28th March 2013

Africa, Asia lead 'mobile money' boom

Still thinking if you're ready to tap into the mobile world? Think no more now and go for it! You'd be amazed by the positive impacts of SMS marketing.

 

AFP - Africa and Asia are leading a global boom in the use of "mobile money" as millions turn to their mobile phones instead of coughing up cash or handing over credit cards.

In 2012, more than 30 million people were actively using mobiles to make payments, according to an industry study released Wednesday at the world's biggest mobile fair held from February 25-28 in Barcelona, Spain.

The study by the mobile operators' industry association, GSMA, found there were more mobile money accounts than traditional bank accounts in Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda.

In a single month, June 2012, more than 30 million people worldwide undertook 224.2 million transactions totalling $4.6 billion (3.5 billion euros), said the report, based on a worldwide survey.

The pace of activity exceeded the 196.3 million transactions performed by PayPal customers on average each month in the third quarter of 2012, it said.

Providers offered 150 mobile money services for people without banks, 41 of which were launched in 2012.

There were 56.9 million registered mobile money customers in sub-Saharan Africa, the study said. In June 2012, there were twice as many mobile money users as Facebook users in the region.

Mobile money's success is based on the fact that the number of mobile phone owners far exceeds the number of people with bank accounts. Sending money can be as simple as sending an SMS text message.

In Indonesia, mobile phone penetration is 106 percent, meaning there is more than one phone for each person in the population, while only 20 percent of the population holds a bank account.

According to Fundamo, an offshoot of global payments giant Visa, some 1.7 billion people worldwide have a mobile device but no bank account and are "economically active".

Originally dominated by banks, newcomers including mobile operators have been lured to the market, notably Safaricom's M-PESA service, which launched in Kenya in 2007 and now claims 15 million users.

The M-PESA service has a network of 50,000 agents including shopkeepers, allowing a city worker for example send to money home to a remote village or to put money aside in savings without opening a bank account.

In September 2012, 19.3 million people in Kenya were signed up to mobile money services, with nearly two billion euros deposited, according to the Kenyan telecommunications regulator CCK.

"The mobile money transfer service has become a key payments and transaction tool, mainly due to its easy use of applications, convenience and low cost value propositions," CCK said.

M-PESA, also present in Afghanistan, South Africa, India and Tanzania, now faces competition in Kenya from rivals including Orange Money provided by France Telecom offshoot Telkom Kenya, Paga, Airtel Money owned by Airtel Kenya and yuMobile offered by Essar Telekom.

Aletha Ling, chief operating officer at Fundamo, said the sector's future growth would depend on the players reaching a certain scale and on the various standards being able to work together.

With its "Visa Mobile Manage Service", Fundamo lets banks or telecommunication operators offer mobile money to customers without having to develop their own technology, she said.

"We think it's going to be an acceleration point," Ling said, noting that the company had recently signed deals with one bank in India and two others in Rwanda.

Are you tempted to try SMS service yourself? Contact us at sales@moceansms.com or +603 8996 4780.

Source: on 5 March 2013