Vodafone Offers SMS Access to Twitter in the UK

Fast growing micro-blogging service, Twitter has announced via its own "macro-blog" that Vodafone UK has resumed allowing updates via SMS. Anyone in the world can update Twitter via SMS but receiving tweets on a mobile phone has been restricted to North America due to the costs of providing the service.

According to the statement by Twitter, Vodafone UK has signed an agreement allowing customers to send and receive SMS updates at no additional cost. Sending tweets from a mobile phone will be part of subscribers normal text messaging bundle with Vodafone - there will be no extra fees. In addition, for the first few weeks, sending tweets will not be deducted from subscribers SMS bundle. Receiving tweets via SMS on a Vodafone handset is totally free.

In the United States, users can send and receive tweets via SMS at no extra charge, and Canada's Bell Mobility recently announced that it would support the service. Twitter says that it will continue to make arrangements with operators around the world.

Commenting on the development, IDC Analyst Jonathan Arber said: "The deal is interesting in that it echoes a wider trend in the mobile industry. Excessive bundling of SMS on both the postpaid and prepaid side is causing revenue erosion in many markets, and operators are seeking new applications for, and new ways of deriving value from SMS. There is ongoing debate around whether social networks will cannibalise SMS, but in fact the two services fit together nicely in many cases. As social networks move closer towards the Twitter 'real time' conversational model (as evidenced by Facebook's recent makeover), mobile updates become increasingly valuable to consumers."

"Mobile and Twitter are an ideal fit, given the immediate nature of the service, and SMS updates will allow all customers to "Tweet" on the move. That being said, there are already a number of unofficial Twitter mobile applications which do the job just fine, and many early adopters will likely have discovered these already." he added.

On the web: Twitter Blog

Posted to the site on 27th March 2009