On short message service

An article titled E-mail on the move with Short Message Service by Lim Tri Santosa on Aug. 7, 2000 is very interesting. It's about sending e-mail through Short Message Service (SMS). SMS is popular because of its cheapness and that's why it is widely offered by GSM operators. One service costs only Rp 200.

Conventionally, we send short messages as short messages from a cellular phone and to be received by other cellular phones. But by benefiting facilities offered by www.excell.to, as introduced by Lim Tri Santosa, we can send short messages as e-mails and to be received as e-mails through a personal computer or a personal digital assistant (PDA).

In Indonesia, we can't even send short messages to cellular phones that are run by different network operators. For example, Satelindo's GSM subscribers cannot send short messages to Telkomsel's subscribers or Excelcomindo's subscribers and vice versa. In-Touch, a software house, comes out with a solution, grabbing this business opportunity, by building a gateway to these network operators so that they can send short messages interchangeably. However, one must subscribe and consequently pay quite an amount of money to In-Touch in order to get this facility.

Sending short message as e-mail is something new. Thanks to The Jakarta Post for publishing this article. In fact, the information technology (IT) section with articles by Zatni Arbi and Lim Tri Santosa that appears every Monday is always interesting.

ADRIANUS HIYUNG TJUNG

Jakarta