Smart expands to accommodate 15 M SMS daily

Responding to the huge popularity of the short message service (SMS), Smart Communications Inc. is undergoing a major expansion program to accommodate at least 15 million text messages daily.

SMS allows subscribers of interconnected GSM digital network operators to send and receive text messages via their handsets.

Although Smart's digital cellular phone network is only one year old, the company already processes over 7 million text messages a day both within its network and from other carriers.

The cellular phone leader was forced to improve its SMS capacity to deliver on its promise of real time text messaging which it has failed to fulfill during the past several weeks.

Smart admitted that one of the primary reasons for the problem was its huge subscriber uptake which jumped from 195,000 by end 1999 to almost double as of February this year.

The company forecasts a total of one million customers for its GSM network by yearend.

Meanwhile, Smart has activated its GSM mobile switching center (MSC) in Cebu City which is the first MSC installed outside Luzon.

Rolando Pena, head of Smart's network services division, said the state-of-the-art Nokia facility will enhance call traffic handling for the Visayas and Mindanao regions.

So far, Smart has activated an MSC in Parañaque to serve Metro Manila while another one in Dau, Pampanga will be commissioned next month to service Northern Luzon.

By having MSCs all over the country, Pena said processing and setting up of calls will no longer have to pass through Metro Manila, thereby, preventing congestion.

He added that during calamities or in the event of untoward incidents that many hamper or disrupt Smart's service, effects will be also be localized and isolated.

Pena said the setting up of MSCs is complemented by an equally rapid pace of cell site expansion which includes the installation of additional voice channels and construction of new cell sites in areas where subscriber take-up is high or in places yet to be covered by the service.

"Smart's expansion plan will cover all network components so that the company will continue delivering not only quality voice and text messaging services on its GSM network but also value added services and other new applications," he said.