"When testing and agreements are finalised, bmobile customers will be able to exchange messages with all mobile customers in the region," said a company release that quoted Kevin Wiley, Chief Executive Office of Cable & Wireless Mobile Services for the Caribbean as being "thrilled" about the pending launch of the service.  "We know it's something our customers want," said Wiley.

The facility to cross-text is already available to bmobile customers, but so far only with Cingular customers since the end of 2004.

The collaboration with Digicel comes as the market continues to demand texting services.  The demand is similar to other regions worldwide.

Citing statistics, C&W said in Europe, texting contributes up to 20 per cent of overall revenues, and pulling out data on France published in CTIA Daily News, it said, the average wireless subscriber sends 24.5 text messages per month - creating 1.1 billion messages per month.

And quoting Business Week, C&W also noted that text messaging will earn revenues of $27 billion worldwide this year.

"A move like this is not only great for our customers, but it's good for the industry," said Wiley.

In the Caribbean, the SMS business has caught on as users tend to see it as less intrusive than voice, and that generally a text message will get to the party even when the voice network is crowded.

Cable and Wireless also points out that during Hurricane Ivan last September, text messaging allowed family and friends to stay in touch, during congestion of the network and periods when the lines had to be kept open for emergency calls.

Note that sending cross-networks texts is the same as sending to a bmobile customer - just enter the 10 digits and send.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20050528T130000-0500_81327_OBS_CROSS_NETWORK_TEXT_MESSAGING_SERVICE_COMING.asp