The SVI-SMSC Short Message Service Centre supports SMS home routing. The SMSC signalling interworking with the Home Location Register (HLR) changes the flow of inbound SMS messages and directs them to the SVI-SMSC instead of straight to a given mobile handset.

SMS home routing makes it possible for MNO and MVNO to provide its customers information on all SMS traffic and to offer advanced value added services such as:

• Spam filtering
• Diversion of incoming SMS to any other SMS capable device
• A mobile subscriber can forward SMS as an email
• Subscriber, IMSI and Location Protection
• Parental SMS control
• Offensive languages filter for certain offensive words
• Auto-reply for traveling in alternative time zones

Here at Squire Technologies we can provide SMSC home routing as a customised solution, accommodating the needs for interworking with systems, and providing the value added services to end customers.

Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) is a session based protocol used in 2G/3G networks to send text between a mobile phone and an application program in the network. Unlike SMS there is no store and forward as USSD transactions only exist for the length of a session. USSD applications are generally menu driven as able to push text in menu format to subscriber handsets.

Applications

• Pre-Paid Roaming - USSD used in the network to check in real-time
  subscriber has enough credit for call
• Pre-paid subscribers - use USSD to manage and top-up their accounts
• Mobile Money - subscribers able to make payments and purchases
  via their phones menu driven USSD interface

Example Case Study

Working with a 4G mobile operator rolling out roaming services they needed to insure that pre-paid subscribers credit checks operate correctly in 3G networks.

Some 3G networks perform credit checks via USSD. The SVI-TAS integrated with a DIAMETER SVI-IWF product is deployed in the clients 4G network to deliver the required USSD to DIAMETER messaging inter-operability. In a subsequent phase of the project the client decided to provide their subscribers with a full USSD driven menu application. This was interfaced and configured using the SVI-TAS to provide the HTTP interface to their OCS platform. This flexibility and ease of deployment allows our clients to rapidly evolve and extend functionality according to their requirements.