Al Jazeera Turns to SMS to Deliver Iraqi War News Alerts

The Arab news service, Al Jazeera is launching an international news service via SMS, to spread its own news stories outside its normal television audience range. Customers will generally have to pay for the service by credit card, although the television channel is negotiating to offer reverse billed SMS as well with the cost added to a users own phone bill automatically.

The text messaging service gives you instant access to the news as it happens throughout the war-zone. This is the first time JSC has offered the option of direct news in English, as well as in Arabic. People can subscribe to the service, by signing up through Aljazeera's website at mobile.ajazeera.net for a monthly fee of just $5.99

The TV channel has suffered from repeated hacking of its English-language website, and has turned to using SMS to maintain the reliability of the news service. The technical infrastructure is provided by PervasiveEdge - a company that also provides SMS services to the US focused news service, CNN.

Samir Ibrahim, head of e-marketing at Aljazeera, said: "The war with Iraq is taking place in a time when many feel detached and uninformed. Providing our news service directly to individuals to their mobile phones from the inside is a major step forward, we are pleased that PervasiveEdge's technology allows people to access our news in such a simple fashion."

Posted to the site on 3rd April 2003