Telecom NZ block bulk international SMSs?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Telecom NZ block bulk international SMSs?

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#453784 31-Mar-2011 12:29

@hellnearthisman - oh I forgot to ask where you had seen information about the SPAM charge just curious as to where this is stated.

tarasutherland

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#453786 31-Mar-2011 12:33

freitasm: [
He was commenting on a questionable business decision, so no need to get personal here.

not getting personal - merely my own observation.

old3eyes

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#453789 31-Mar-2011 12:53

nakedmolerat: i personally think this is a good move from telecom. thumbs up from me.

I take it that you don't use an online SMS service??

Regards,

Old3eyes

jonb

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#453796 31-Mar-2011 13:07

Maybe it's blocked as Telecom can't be sure if there's an unsubscribe facility for bulk texts not sent from NZ? (Would telecom even be legally responsible for that?)

freitasm

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#453802 31-Mar-2011 13:35

It is actually a little of this, a little of that it seems.

- overseas spammers might use some SMS service to buy bulk SMS, authenticate with a local number and then start sending unsolicited messages (SPAM)

- local SMS services providers want/need to keep a captive market so asked Telecom to prevent people from using cheaper overseas options (BUSINESS)

- Telecom pay interconnection fees an unsolicited bulk SMS are costing them a lot (SPAM)

As for shortcode services (those ones where you have to sign up for weekly updates, ringtones, horoscope, etc each costing you premium rates), those are mostly contracted directly with the operator and it's easier to cut them.

Not sure what's going on here, but some of these services are used for legitimate purposes (unless some up at the telco think customers paying cheaper fees for SMS instead of the standard SMS fees is not legitimate). As said before, some people use those services to create their own notification applications, etc. Just because it's cheaper.

There's an analogy with email services. Some ISPs refuse to receive emails from servers that are in a blacklist. Not surprisingly some legitimate ISPs have been thrown in those blacklists, thanks to bot infections.

But I do think cutting access to these services altogether is not friendly and a blanket ban is hurtful.

hellonearthisman

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#453820 31-Mar-2011 14:24

akia: @hellnearthisman - oh I forgot to ask where you had seen information about the SPAM charge just curious as to where this is stated.

I might have been mistaken, but I base my statement on this thinks.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=95&topicid=76911&page_no=1
"?Zero priced SMS interconnection, so called ?Pure Bill and Keep?, risks encouraging SMS spam. Maintaining a cost for SMS, even something as low as one cent, will help protect against spam."
Where a fee is present to protect against spam.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/jointhedebate/6754 also mentions that a fee is used to reduce spam.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=60453&page_no=1#323252
VF Said "we have argued for some charge for SMS in order to ensure against SMS spam"
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/jointhedebate/6743
"Commission: if introduced BAK with a 10% mandatory limit on imbalance would that address TXT spam issue?

Vodafone: Yes."

These all relate to percentage of the MTR fees. I thought these got accepted by the network providers and so the network providers should have a pool of money somewhere to deal with these international spam problems. Even if the Telcos are balancing this, they are still collecting it from the customers are they not.

Even recently with the BAK debate the antispam fee has been mentioned.
http://www.tuanz.org.nz/blog/e379f711-b2b6-4423-9e32-4a8bf9f301db/1efee61d-f9f0-4ded-9baf-d4ed0fc169e2.html

freitasm

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#453823 31-Mar-2011 14:34

I think you're mistaking a "barrier to entry" with a "fee" to act on spam. Very different things.

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hellonearthisman

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#453834 31-Mar-2011 15:21

Looks like I am mistaken, was hoping that pile of money they use as a barrier to block spam could really be used to prevent international spam instead of blocking all traffic. oh well, consumers loss.

BarTender

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#453941 31-Mar-2011 21:02

freitasm: There's an analogy with email services. Some ISPs refuse to receive emails from servers that are in a blacklist. Not surprisingly some legitimate ISPs have been thrown in those blacklists, thanks to bot infections.

But I do think cutting access to these services altogether is not friendly and a blanket ban is hurtful.

Sticking with that analogy when a "legitimate ISP" gets blacklisted they normally need to clean up their act and kick off their customers and prove they are doing something about spam. I think a lot of these services don't seem to take a lot of responsibility in their SMS distribution. And since you can put anything in the "from" rather than being able to track an IP.

lukegm

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#453998 1-Apr-2011 01:32

akia,

Are you able to tell us if this is the extent of changes Telecom NZ are planning on making to SMS delivery or are there likely to be further changes?

If other changes are likely, are you able to tell us what they would be or if Telecom NZ will announce them before implementing them?

Thanks

lukegm

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#453999 1-Apr-2011 01:32

steveteamer

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#454133 1-Apr-2011 11:34

Hi Akia

Our company Teamer.net is an online sports team management site that provide free sms to our users to enable them to organise their sports events. We have 22k members in NZ and 660k worldwide. We deliver into NZ through MBLOX and MACH, two of the largest global SMS aggregators. As of this week our Telecom NZ members have not been receiving their notifications about upcoming matches. Our helpdesk has been inundated with upset organisers and players.
All are members are registered, all sms communications are triggered by their team organiser. Our service has become essentially inoperable in NZ this week. I totally understand and commend the attempts to eliminate SPAM SMS from people's lives, but there are free to use services like ours who only communicate with their own fully opted in members who can now no longer reach a large portion of their NZ user base. Will an attempt be made to try to distinguish those who are sending SPAM and those who provide a worthwhile opt in free sms service?

Kind Regards
Steve Moulton
Co-Founder, CTO
www.teamer.net

akia

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#454143 1-Apr-2011 11:51

@steveteamer - Basically we're investigating at the moment. However I encourage that you make contact with M-Channel to look at whether there is any chance you can have a direct connection to our SMSC in the meantime. http://telecom.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1353

freitasm

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#454144 1-Apr-2011 11:52

Akia, that link goes to "Permission Denied"...

zolteg

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#454149 1-Apr-2011 11:57

I also wonder here, whether there are any international corporates who use an offhshore bulk txt service for internal communications or alerts with their staff that have been affected.

I've not seen anything myself, but knowing that there are corporates in NZ who use Telecom & Vodafone services for this purpose, would it not be feasible for other legitimate corporate users to be affected.

I'm thinking the Shells, Ciscos, IBM, Fords etc of the World. I also wonder about impact on TCL customers who resell Voda/TCNZ services.

Either way, I concur with the general sentiment here - sledgehammer to crack a nut, poor/no notification, not a good look for TCNZ

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