Announcement - New Guideline for sending SMS towards Malaysia Celcom via Celcom Direct

Dear Valued Customers,

Please be informed that we have been informed towards a new Guideline by Malaysia Celcom with the following details:

New Guideline for sending SMS to Malaysia Celcom via Celcom Direct
Date: Wednesday, 5th May 2010
Start time: 10.00 am (GMT +8)

Service Impact: Failure to comply will result the Bulk SMS being automatically rejected by Celcom (thus chargeable, but not being delivered to the handset). With this new guideline, 7 of standard 160 characters per ONE SMS credit will need to be allocated with RM0.00 (in front of the message)

Example of a new message: RM0.00 With effective from May 5, 2010, all Bulk SMS to Celcom, M'sia via Direct Bulk @ 66555 must append "RM0.00" in front of the message to ensure delivery. (158 characters)

This guideline is not yet mandatory for other operators in Malaysia, but will be a good practice. In addition, it is easier to use the same message for all operators when sending a Bulk broadcast; since it is not straight-forward to differentiate mobile numbers based on prefixes.

Please be informed and our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Malaysia to use SMS to cut hospital queues

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The Malaysian Health Ministry is making efforts to introduce an SMS-based system at hospitals in the country in a bid to reduce queues of patients.

The New Straits Times said on Tuesday that the ministry had started a pilot project for that, in which the queue management and appointment reminder would send out an SMS when there are five patients before their turn.

The system would also provide updated statistics for hospital services in the country, through which the ministry could monitor the number of patients, the illnesses being treated and the duration at the various departments within the hospital and clinics, the daily quoted Malaysian Health Minister Liow Tiong Laias saying.

Liow held a briefing at Johor Baharu on Monday when he unveiled a pilot project to use the reminder system there.

He said his ministry was still fine tuning the system in cooperation with a local telecom company, and once the kinks were ironed out, it would start implementing the system at medical facilities with high patient crowds.

The Malaysian Health Ministry set a 30-minute waiting limit at local hospitals in 2009, but Liow said at present only 70 percent of local hospitals can follow that practice.

He hoped that technology can further reduce patients' waiting time.

Study Suggests Text Messages Can Increase Savings

Quite an attention grabbing headline from the WSJ, claiming text messages are good for savings.

A new study by a group of economists looking at why people save money found that simply sending out cellphone reminders increased savings balances by 6%.

"The study challenges the idea that people simply don't have enough self-control to save. Instead, the problem may be they just aren't paying attention, said Dartmouth University economics professor Jonathan Zinman, one of the study's four authors. "Savings isn't at the top of their mind," said Zinman. "Basically all we did was remind them."

... In three cases conducted in the Philippines, Peru and Bolivia, the economists teamed up with local banks to send reminders to people randomly selected from those who had recently opened a savings account.

The banks sent several different types of messages, including letters in Peru and text messages in Bolivia and the Philippines. Some used negative language to stress the consequences of not saving money.

"If you don't frequently deposit into the Gihandom Savings account, your dream will not come true," warned one message in the Philippines.

While positive or negative language did not have a significant effect on the savings rate, mentioning a customer's specific goal did. When reminders mentioned incentives offered by the bank for consistent deposits, bank savings increased by almost 16%."

Conference on Communications and Multimedia Market 2009 @ SKMM

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Market Conference 2009 was held on 19th May 2008 at SKMM’s Headquarters in Cyberjaya. This year’s Conference assembled all stakeholders of the industry to address the key theme - “New Era of Cross Industry Collaboration” with various topics being presented by experts. The conference is riding on the three main sub themes - “Sustaining the New Communications Ecosystems”, “Transforming and Monetizing Products and Services” and “The Great Convergence of Content, Telecommunications and Business, Unleashing the New Communications Ecosystem”. Presentations were made by industry participants, observers and analysts.