Bulk SMS is Helping The Deaf!

Bulk SMS messaging is supplying New Zealand’s deaf community with the ability to get in touch with the country’s local emergency services. How are they doing it?

The Ubiquity of Bulk SMS

It isn’t in the least surprising that the use of bulk SMS has spread to emergency services. The fact that it is implemented to help the deaf community is innovative to say the least, showing that SMS as a communications medium has grown to be a part of our everyday lives.

After all, 4.6 billion people have access to a mobile phone – a figure set to increase to 5 billion a bit later this year. And, taking into account that 94% of SMS messages are read (75% are read almost immediately), it’s easy to understand why bulk SMS has become the ideal way to get in touch with a large number of people, in a very short time.

So to better illustrate how you can use bulk SMS effectively, let’s see if we can’t figure out what possible systems the New Zealand deaf community might have in place to achieve their aim of effective communication.

The Bulk SMS Interface

To start off, one would have to assume that the emergency services themselves are using a custom interface that will allow them to link all incoming (and outgoing) text messages with an individual’s profile. This points to custom programming, and therefore the use of an API, or Application Programming Interface.

Now before we list the API’s, one would have to keep in mind that not all API’s are capable of two-way bulk SMS messaging. However, it is possible to combine API’s to suit business needs. This means that one API can be implemented to send SMS messages while another can be used to receive messages. Note that all API’s are capable of sending SMS messages by default.

So what are the available API’s?

Two-way:

• HTTP/S
• SMPP
• SOAP
• FTP

One-way:

• XML
• SMTP
• COM

That being said, one would have to assume that, seeing as a custom interface might be used by New Zealand’s emergency services, a high-volume API is being used to possibly cater for the entire deaf population of 79,000. One such API is SMPP, capable of two-way sending and rapid bulk SMS message transmission. And that’s one possible scenario of how New Zealand is able to provide its deaf community with access to emergency services.

What Can You Do?

While the above explains a scenario where high-volume messaging might be appropriate, keep in mind that there are tools that would allow even smaller businesses to do much the same for their local deaf community.

The benefit of using bulk SMS is that you’ll be able to reach more customers using a medium common to almost 5 billion people on earth. This will not only add to your demographic, but also supply you with a platform for business expansion.

For more information on how you can text-message enable your business to cater for a greater target audience, read more on our bulk SMS page.

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Tags: application programming interface, bulk sms, bulk SMS interface, high-volume API, two-way messaging