Increased market pressures, growing competition and mobile messaging demand continuing to break records is forcing many mobile operators to consider what they can do to future-proof their infrastructures while increasing average revenue per user (ARPU). Text messaging volume will skyrocket worldwide from 936 billion in 2005 to 2.3 trillion in 2010, according to a report from industry analyst firm Gartner.

The next-generation infrastructure, called Mobile Messaging 2.0, breaks the mold of the typical architecture that most operators rely on today. Rather than forcing operators to deploy and expand services in different silos, these new architectures have the flexibility to allow operators to scale easily and affordably.

Mobile Messaging 2.0 is a blueprint for an open architecture using common standards that allows operators to configure their networks to quickly and affordably deploy and manage new services. It follows the same track as Web 2.0 in converting the user experience from one that is limited by network constraints to one that gives subscribers more freedom to choose and define their experience.

Operators need not rip and replace their existing infrastructure investments to evolve their networks to be Mobile Messaging 2.0-ready. Rather, they should reconfigure how their infrastructures are deployed. First, they should break their infrastructures into separately scalable components that support multiple messaging types (SMS, multimedia messaging service (MMS), mobile instant messaging (MIM), etc). Then, they should independently deploy revenue-generating services and applications across those components. This type of tiered architecture streamlines infrastructure management, accelerates new service deployment, and reduces capital and operating expense associated with scaling the infrastructure to meet growth.

Defining Mobile Messaging 2.0
Mobile Messaging 2.0 gives mobile operators a methodology for designing architectures that will give subscribers more control over their messaging experience while cutting costs and growing revenue. Mobile Messaging 2.0 lets subscribers decide how to manage their own messaging experience. It's the difference between network-controlled messaging (as defined by the network's limitations) and user-controlled messaging (powered by technology that enables the user to dictate messaging options).

With Mobile Messaging 2.0 users can now configure mobile presence and availability. For example, find me, follow me features allow users to automatically forward certain calls from a desk or home phone to a cell phone. Subscribers can also receive voice mails as text messages and set special ring tones for contacts. They can send messages to groups, archive important messages, filter out unwanted messages before they reach the handset and create customized auto-reply messages.

The blueprint
Though the evolution is under way, the industry as a whole has much to do to make Mobile Messaging 2.0 and its advanced user capabilities pervasive. Current infrastructures are built in silos - SMS, MMS, IM, e-mail, voice mail, etc. - because conflicting standards and interfaces prevented operators from integrating them. So carriers had to deploy and operate each separately, which hampered overall network management. This raised costs because operators had to over-buy capacity to accommodate peak traffic, rather than average traffic, for each service. Scalability became more of a cost than a profit.

With Mobile Messaging 2.0, operators create an underlying messaging infrastructure that is cheaper to manage and more flexible for service and feature deployment. This infrastructure will have four tiers:
" access and delivery - integrates messaging components to the core network via standard interfaces; " control - provides network and business logic to route messages to subscribers and/or applications;
" storage - stores traffic that isn't delivered on first attempt; and " application - executes the logic for application-to-person (A2P) or person-to- applications solutions (P2A). This tiered architecture allows operators to increase storage across the infrastructure to support SMS, MMS, etc. without incurring the costs of overbuying capacity for any one service. Operators providing text, picture and instant messaging can use this type of architecture to create a common notification and delivery system spanning each service, as well as common interfaces and message stores. New services and features could easily plug into the common infrastructure, helping to drive revenue while having a minimal effect on operational costs. This approach gives operators a unified view of previously siloed networks, but also provides the ability to add capacity only where needed.

Not only do operators reduce costs with Mobile Messaging 2.0 infrastructures, they also increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and reduce churn by delivering the latest messaging capabilities to their customers. They also future-proof their networks by establishing the foundation for added capacity and fast deployment of new technologies.

Mobile Messaging 2.0 seeks to give mobile operators an advantage by enabling them to quickly and cost-effectively launch new user-defined services, scale them to meet growing demand without overbuying capacity, and manage them more efficiently. It's a future-proofing blueprint that will enable mobile operators to stay profitable in a fast-changing market.