[Lee]

It goes a little deeper than just reading the text message to ensure billing - we use a unique PIN architecture that the Customer must enter into a specific panel on our payment page that vaildates the entire transaction. Until he's verified, and we've received confirmation for the network that he's been billed, he ain't going nowhere! We've worked with people who just rely on customers reading the text, and they routinely lose up to $20,000 a month from fraud!

See to me, that would actually be a disadvantage of utilizing SMS billing on a paysite.

Thats putting at least 2 extra (un-needed) steps in the process. He gets sent an SMS message, has to write it down and go to your site then enter it into a 'panel' before he gets access.

With all due respect, this is a common myth. USA networks are now offering Premium SMS (anyone watch Pop/American Idol?). The technology is only very slightly leading in Europe (and again, a little further ahead in Asia), but the gap is narrowing on a monthly basis.

With all due respect to you, your beleif is wrong to a point. The technology may be on par [almost] with Europe and the Asia Pacific however, SMS / Text Messaging itself hasnt taken off in the US like it has in the two areas i previously mentioned.

Again, with all due respect - this is a viable billing solution NOW (and will be early mainstream in more like 5 months than 5 years). Lee's right about offering it to all international traffic, which is why our payment system works like dialers - the Customer just pays from where he's located, we accrue all payments centrally and settle with you.

That figure of 5 months before becoming a viable billing solution is way off-par. Even the mobile telcoms industry beleives that the US markets will be nowhere near as large as the EU market is for a minimum of 5 years and, as the technology is continually developed in the Asia Pacific Rim this market will definately continue to grow in the US specifically however, at a much slower pace than the rest of the world.

The most explosive growth is among 'pay as you go' customer, who have regularly been identified as being the most consistent, and biggest buyers with SMS. We find Customers like the security and simplicity (and anonymity) of using their mobile. No big problems with the procedure of sending/receiving messages (after all, billions are sent every month, so it's not so much of a turn-off!)

Nothing i can really say to back that up or not so ill have to beleive what you are saying based on your knowledge of your existing customer base

You might like to check out some of the EU tech / media agencies such as europemedia.net for some more up-to-date figures on the global telecom billing usage too