Instant Messenger for Cellular Networks

Business challenge

As the wireless services market gets increasingly competitive cellular operators seek new ways to attract new subscribers and retain the old ones. Having a great coverage and decent prices is not enough anymore - consumers demand new value-added services, like mobile internet access, SMS, etc. Having realized that, our company has developed Mobile Instant Messenger - a solution that can be installed by cellular operator on existing GSM networks. It allows mobile phone users to access popular Internet Instant Messaging networks such as ICQ and AOL IM right from their cell phones. This exceptional service is targeted primarily at younger generation of cell phone users.

Solution

Instant Messenger (IM) for Cellular Networks is a solution for cellular operators, which allows them to provide their subscribers with access to the popular instant messaging (IM) networks. Supported IM services include ICQ, Yahoo IM, and MSN Messenger. The end user may:

• change his/her status (On-line, Busy, Offline) right from their cell phone,

• access the regular contact list

• view presence statuses of other users on this list.

Other people will see the cell phone user as logged on, on their computers and will be able to exchange messages.

Unlike mobile options supported in such tools like Yahoo IM and MSN, mobile users may send messages directly from their phones to other Internet users.

Our IM solution consists of two parts: IM server deployed on the operator's premises, and IM applet that installed on the end user's cell phone. IM server is highly scalable server application supporting up to 50,000 users per one server. IM applet is a SIM toolkit application deployed on the SIM card of the user. SIM card is a special User Identity used in every GSM or CDMA phone. We optimized IM applet to fit into small memory footprint of SIM cards (24Kbyte for binary code).

MIM is already deployed on the Siberian network of the biggest cellular operator of the Central and Eastern Europe - Mobile TeleSystems (www.nsk.mts.ru, NYSE: MBT) and on the Orange network in Thailand.

Software and Technologies: C/C++, Java 2 Enterprise Edition, JavaCard for SIM Toolkit, FreeBSD, WindowsNT, Linux.

Benefits

The typical penetration of our Instant Messenger (IM) solution for cell phones is about 2-4% of the subscribers' customer base. It allows cellular operator to tie-down and retain a group of existing customers by offering a unique service. Subscribers are able to communicate from cell phones with their friends on the Internet's instant messaging network. Their counterparts see their IM presence as they are always connected to the Internet. In fact we use the service for communications ourselves! Our IM solution utilizes SMS as a transport. That allows subscribers to use the IM service when roaming with other operators unlike alternative approaches based on GSM data or GPRS. There is no need to buy additional equipment like PDA or expensive smart phones to access IM networks. All useful features of IM are accessible from the regular cell phone. Moreover, unlike other approaches based on plain SMS to communicate IM networks, we exploit SIM Toolkit and JavaCard. This allows users to have user interface on the cell phone similar to what they used to on their desktops: menus, contact lists, commands.