Terminology

We don't attempt to go into mind-numbing detail here. But if you're not sure about something on our web site, may be this page can help. Don't forget to call us if you have any questions.

MT (Mobile Terminated)

Refers to SMS messages that bill the customer on receipt at the customer's handset. If the customer's handset account has insufficient funds or is switched off, the message cannot be received.

If a message cannot reach the handset due to insufficient credit or it is switched off, it is queued by the operator (e.g. Vodafone or Orange) for a time (varies between operators). If the handset is then switched on or receives credit, the queued billing messages are delivered.

MO (Mobile Originated)

Refers to SMS messages sent from the customer's handset into a service for example into our Mobill.net SMS gateway. Typically these messages trigger a charge to the customer's mobile account as s/he sends the message. Consequently if the customer has insufficient credit, the message will not be sent (it may be held in the Outbox of the handset).

Note that if a service charges multiple billing messages to form a transaction (e.g. 3x £1.50 messages) then MT has the greatest chance of success as MO relies on the customer performing each of the three SMS sends.

Premium Rate SMS (PSMS)

An SMS message that is charged to the customer's mobile account. The charge will appear on the customer's next mobile phone bill. PSMS messages are usually sent from a service (see MT) to a phone, although they may be sent from the handset to the service (see MO). Normally PSMS messages are associated with a short-code.

Reverse-Bill

Exactly the same as MT (Mobile Terminated) above.

Shortcode

A short code is like a short telephone number, and can be dialled by mobile phone handsets only. Shortcodes are operated by service providers for information and products. A travel information line might be dialled via a shortcode, or a Ringtone service might be SMSed via a shortcode.

A shortcode is routed through to a service provider's SMS gateway. Any traffic (voice or SMS) is therefore forwarded to this business.

For SMS services, a business might use a dedicated single shortcode to operate many services, identified by a keyword.

The shortcode defines the price point charged to the consumer. For example, 83300 is routed to mobill.net and each message sent from it is charged at £1.50.

Keyword

A keyword normally refers to a service identification for SMS products. It is the first word of a text message. For example: 'RINGTONE on' might be an SMS message asking for the RINGTONE service to be started. Similarly 'STOP ringtone' would stop that service.

Manual Messaging

Services operated on Mobill.net SMS gateway can be a manual messaging service. With this, the service operator manually types an SMS message into a web form and clicks send. This message is automatically sent to anyone subscribed to that particular service. The messages are normally billed according to the shortcode the service operates on.

WAP Push

A WAP Push is sent like a normal text message consisting of a link to a web site, but with a flag set to be presented to the handset as a service message.

When a WAP Push is received, the handset will say that a service message has arrived and prompt the user to visit the link contained. If the user accepts, the WAP browser loads the link immediately.

These are useful for a number of services that feature download-able mobile content. It also forms part of Mobill.net's web subscribe API.

Premium Rate Line

A telephony service that a customer dials and is charged via is telephone bill for use.

The service can be anything from competitions to information lines, to adult lines to voicemail lines. Technical support lines are also possible although there are regulations preventing call queuing while the customer is being charged per-minute.

The charge may be an instant one-off payment made as soon as the call is answered (see: Drop Charge), or a per-minute charge for as long as the call lasts subject to regulations.

StealthNET offer a large range of off the shelf services that can be mixed with various pricing tariffs. We can also develop and manage bespoke applications.

Drop Charge

A single charge paid by the caller once a premium-rate call connects. Tariffs may be as low as 25p and as high as £1.50. If you need to charge more, you will need a per-minute line.

Aggregators

Aggregators are usually needed in order to obtain the best pay-out rates. The basic idea is that the mobile and landline networks that charge the customer will only deal with a very small number of companies operating services. So these companies will act as a gateway to further companies down the chain. Each step of the chain either aggregates multiple other services or operates the services themselves.

An example: Mobill.net acts as both an aggregator and service provider. It deals with both resellers and operators of services, and aggregators itself.

Similarly, we operate thousands of premium-rate telephone lines across a number of networks, allowing us to get the best possible out-payment and pass this on to our reseller network.

Out-Payment / Pay-Outs

The amount a service provider or reseller receives per unit sold. This usually works on a volume scale, so the higher the volume, the larger the per-unit out-payment is.

Note that the out-payment by mobile numbers is significantly smaller than that given by the fixed-line networks. The extra cash is taken by the mobile operators and is not seen by aggregators or service providers. This will have an impact on profitability for SMS services due to any refunds or fraud processed.

Egress Call Charge

Some services require a call to be terminated on an IVR that is physically located away from the telephony network. For example, the network call handling equipment might be in London, but the IVR to process the call might be in Manchester. The call is therefore routed egress to Manchester. There may be an egress call handling charge associated with this.

Ingress Call Charge

Sometimes there is a charge for receiving a call to your services. This is known in the industry as an ingress charge. This is the opposite to the Egress charge. Note that this is rarely found.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

An IVR is essentially a computer with a telephone attached. It detects an incoming call, works out which number was dialled, looks up which service operates on that number, and starts a corresponding script.

The script can be very simple or very complex. It can call other numbers and route your call. It can play voice prompts and music and ask you to dial keys on the keypad ("Press 1 for this, 2 for that.."). It can connect to databases and call HTTP interfaces to process credit card requests and other things.

StealthNET has a wide range of IVR services, many off the shelf. If you need something we haven't got, give us a call and we'll see what we can do. Oh, and our IVRs have an awful lot of telephones attached, so don't worry about calls not getting through...

HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

When your web browser connects to a web site to ask for a web page or image, it uses HTTP which is a computer language.

It happens to be very well established and can carry lots of different types of data. We use it when our servers talk to each other. Our servers can also talk to yours via HTTP. It's very simple to implement using standard software packages (often free). So if you need statistics delivered to your application daily, we'd probably suggest an HTTP based API.

Application Programming Interface (API)

As you may have already found on our web site, we use APIs quite extensively. They are documented languages and formatting for use when our computers talk to each other and to yours. Most of the time the APIs will talk via HTTP over the Internet.

Call Queuing

Telephony mechanism by which incoming calls are placed on-hold until an operator becomes available. See our QueueConnect call queuing system for details.

Contact us for more information