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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Telephony |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | San Diego, California, USA |
| Key people | Michael Pousti, Chairman and CEO |
| Products | SMS messaging |
| Revenue | unknown |
| Net income | unknown |
| Number of employees | unknown |
| Website | www.sms.ac |
SMS.ac, Inc. is a mobile data communications company based in San Diego, California.
Membership
SMS.ac claims over 30 million registered users in more than 180 countries, making it the largest community of registered mobile users in the world.
Business model
SMS.ac derives its revenue through revenue-sharing arrangements with cellular carriers. The CEO of SMS.ac, in a speech at Global Mobile Congress 2004, made the following remarks:
- "Mobile operators are uniquely positioned to benefit from revenue shares derived from even the smallest transactions. As a focal point of this nascent but exploding industry, it is important for operators to enter quickly into equitable revenue share agreements with third parties. (To operators) Open your billing systems and you will prosper."
- "Nearly 2 billion people worldwide are already paying their mobile providers for mobile phone use. Now, imagine if your company can harness the power of microbilling. If your business has not already embraced an aggressive strategy to evolve to a mobile content or application company, drop most everything you’re doing and prepare your content for mobile. Just be sure to base your offerings on communication. It’s all about communications – not just content."
- “If we try and tether the growth too early with compliance and regulations, the chances that we’ll do more harm than good is almost a certainty."
- "Integrated billing is the path to the future. Refine and improve the process for third-party entities to collect revenues and get paid. Achieve predictability with billing. Work towards standardization. Without this, the industry won’t ever be real.”
Criticism
- Sms.ac is noted in the blog community for its vigorous legal response to online criticism.
- In March 2005 the Belgian newspaper De Standaard (March 23, 2005, "Onderzoek naar sms-site") reported that users of the "free" SMS service were subsequently charged €0.25 per message for receiving unwanted messages.
- Phone users are often billed for supposedly "free" services that they say they never ordered.
- Cellphone giant Sprint no longer accepts messages from, or does business with, sms.ac.
- sms.ac asks for the password to users' email accounts so that it can look up their address books and send invitations to their friends.
See also
References
- "A Ringing Headache?". Forbes. 22 June 2005.
- "SMS.ac". FierceWireless.
External links
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