Comments on: Should we be Building SMS or Internet Services for Africa?

By: S Woodside

S Woodside — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:17:53 +0000

“MTN says there is 92% GPRS coverage on their network”

Does that mean that all of their subscribers have GPRS enabled on their accounts? And what’s the cost per MB?

By: John Oxley

John Oxley — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:35:35 +0000

The downside of data is it’s lack of coverage. The downside of SMS isn’t cost, or even the lack of structure, but the fact there is no session. An SMS is fire and forget and let’s hope that something comes back. The answer to both these is USSD:

* Cheap.
* Coverage everywhere that you can make a phone call.
* Request/Response is in a session, not completely unrelated packages.
* Structured menus

However you don’t get “pretty” applications out of it.

By: Mobile Web East Africa – Stream — WhiteAfrican

Mobile Web East Africa – Stream — WhiteAfrican — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 07:57:53 +0000

[...] built into some of the USSD and SMS applications running in Uganda. (more on this here: “Should we be building SMS or internet services for Africa?“). Eric agrees that there is a lot of upside in that space, and that they’re trying to [...]

By: leedonly

leedonly — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:40:09 +0000

I say we should build internet services – SMS i think is somewhat of a blind alley and even though there are ways to use SMS beyond what its used for now – the cellular incumbents have no interest in developing systems or facilitating applications that undermine their revenue stream. While its in the nature of humans to try to develop things that are cheaper,faster and better

By: Franklin Nnebe

Franklin Nnebe — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:11:34 +0000

The cost of data is really the issue and if the focus is on SMS then the operators have really no incentive to upgrade and expand their networks or bring the price of their handsets down. So African service providers should be pushing for IP because that as a side effect will bring down the price of SMS.

By: HASH

HASH — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:17:59 +0000

@Meredith F. Chang – I’d actually disagree with you on this. Both are forms for moving bits of information that allows you read/write access to a database, or hooks into an API. Data networks accessed through your mobile phone are not about loading up websites, at least not in the context of this post, it’s about a different “channel” to pipe information.

@Philbert Muzungaire – If that was the case, I would have said “Africans” not “Africa” two completely different topics. This is an article pointed at the developers of web/mobile solutions for use in Africa (for profit and not-for-profit), there’s nothing here about charity.

By: Meredith F. Chang

Meredith F. Chang — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:30:35 +0000

Great Post & Great Coments !

SMS and Mobile Internet are different tools that provide difference services and we should use each solution in a way that speaks to their particular strengths. Eventually, Africa will have High GPRS penetration. This still does not mean that a website or webform (or google) is the solution for every problem. I think there a great deal of value in SMS, for example, in terms of data collection, simple request/response, and voice integration . Even people with iPhones still use google SMS.

By: Philbert Muzungaire

Philbert Muzungaire — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:35:08 +0000

I hate to nitpick but perhaps you should rephrase your question to something like “Should we be Building SMS or Internet Services for African clients or customers?.” The original question conveys the sense that you will be giving these products/serices away as charity. I hope that is not your intended meaning. Besides as an African, I am a little tired of “lets do for Africans” sentiments or attitudes. My brother in Bostswana uses Skype, mobile phone SMS, Internet services, etc, according to what he can afford. There is or is not a market depending on country or location.

Your discussion is welcome nevertheless.

Best regards,

Philbert, New York

By: Baker Kawesa

Baker Kawesa — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 13:09:25 +0000

What can you really do with 140 characters of text and no real interactivity?

SMS is much like a nice little “black and white” TV set, it is a start, but no so much!

Mobile internet + web capable handsets = something like a “color” TV set, a much better start!

Of course, telecoms providers do no wish to become dumb tunnels for data, which is what a telecoms industry built more around the internet would do to them. They need to control the applications for more money squeezing out of the already dissatisfied customer!

Guess who’s king? Customer? Nah, shareholder!

By: Louis

Louis — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:19:34 +0000

well – actually i have something to add. I think first it seems the voice aspect has been totally ignored – i think in terms of phones the voice aspect is totally under utilized – voice can be used for so much more than just conversations for example to access IVR systems and also voiceXML based websites which are not too difficult to develop and which can support many local languages – voice also is available to probably 100% of the population because you dont have to own a phone you can use anyones phone .

As for SMS i think SMS can be much more than the box that the telcos have put it into but that requires a change in mindset – what i think is that beginning with shortcodes – i think of shortcodes as analogous to domains now the situation with SMS is almost as though internet domains were rationed.

Now imagine for a second shortcodes were simple and cheap to obtain and there was a simple service to publish information and make it available so that instead of handing out my phone number to everyone i could simply handout my shortcode for people to text and read my updates.

So for example my blog could have a shortcode which you could text to get my updates and so on and so forthand i could link other people shortcodes in my posts basically have a sms based web.

ok im straying a bit