ITU Assigns First Global SMS Short Code—to Charity
GENEVA -- ITU has assigned the first global SMS short code, with the aim of coordinating postdisaster charitable contributions across national borders and mobile operators. “The idea is to make it possible to use one global number, all over the world, wherever you are, and tap that number in, and thereby donate through your mobile phone to an emergency,” said Per Stenbeck, UNICEF’s international fundraising dir.
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“The money will be split equally between UNICEF and the IFRC,” the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Stenbeck said: “It’s tapping into the fact that there are now billions of mobile phones… and they're all potential instruments for giving in an emergency situation.” In the hierarchy of number ranges, it lifts the number above all national systems and means all operators can integrate this number into their system, said Gabriel Solomon, GSM Assn. dir.-partnership development. The number’s “principal and only focus really is for post-disaster charitable donations -- something on the scale of the tsunami or the recent earthquake in Pakistan,” he said.
The ITU allocated the code +9790 767. 979 is for international premium rate services. 0 is a reserve charging code, so no other number will start with 9790. And 767 very conveniently spells out either SMS or SOS, “as you prefer,” said Richard Hill, counselor to ITU-T SG 2, the lead telecom study group for disaster relief and early warning.
“The way we see this solution working is that we would ask the operators to terminate the call in their national network; so although it is an intentionally prefixed number, we are calling for operators to terminate that call nationally to prevent 2 things really: One is the incremental cost associated with transporting the message internationally through aggregators; and 2nd, to mitigate the risk of fraud,” said Solomon.
Getting agreements between the mobile community and UNICEF and IFRC is the next critical step, said Solomon: “What we hope to do as an association is come up with an agreeable type of boilerplate template, because you can imagine if UNICEF and IFRC have to have bilateral agreements with 670 mobile operators, it’s going to take a considerable resource and may take some time.”
“If we as the GSMA can come out and say we've approved this kind of headline or sort of heads of agreement, it’s now down to the operators and UNICEF and IFRC to put the final touches on. That’s something we actually organize on a fairly regular basis at our conferences for roaming… but I think, what we're trying to do is get probably our board, which is 21 leading global operators, to endorse this, and at that point the rest of the industry will follow suit. That’s the hope at least,” said Solomon.
“Where UNICEF and the IFRC are quite powerful, is that they will be able to convince the media to broadcast effectively this number with their reports on the disaster,” said Solomon. The number is expected to provide aid agencies quick cash infusions when disaster strikes, without the collection worries often associated with pledges: “Where this is quite powerful is… the ratio of pledge to bank is 100%… This really gives the aid agencies the cash quickly and I think that’s critical for them because in order for them to operate, they really need to buy services,” Solomon said.
Final ITU approval is expected in Jan. and will be published in the ITU operational bulletin, officials said. ITU also approved a recommendation (E.910) that “clarifies the principles for the registration of names under the Internet top-level domain ’.int’ and the process by which qualified international organizations can register for domain names under ’.int’,” documents said. The recommendation will go to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority for consideration, added Hill.