Glo, Starcomms top list of Gmail supported SMS

Out of the eight mobile operators currently supporting Google Mail (Gmail) Short Messaging Service (SMS) across the continent, only two Nigerian operators are involved.

This is coming as more and more Nigerian are scrambling to get Gmail account due to its increasingly multiple platform access, including chat, SMS, buzz and talk and blog among others.

Google SMS option enables Gmail account owner to send SMS from his or her email to any relative’s mobile phone, which can only be delivered on those mobile network operators supporting the service.

ITRealms Online investigation revealed that in Nigeria, only Glo and Starcomms have enabled this service on their networks, thus supporting SMS that originate from their Gmail accounts to mobiles.

Interestingly, Google Mail SMS offers 50 free SMS to any subscriber on the supporting mobile networks free of charge. Any SMS received in return cancels the SMS earlier sent.

Replying to SMS messages, officials noted that “when you receive an SMS message from a Gmail contact, add the incoming number to your phone’s address book (this number is associated with the sender’s Gmail account, so you can use it to send Chat messages to that person in the future). Then, you can reply to the message as you would any other text message, and your reply appears as a Chat message in your friend’s Gmail account.”

Further investigations showed that a total of eight mobile operators support mobile operators for SMS chat in Gmail across Africa.

In the nearby Ghana, Airtel, Tigo and MTN are involved in supporting Gmail SMS, while in Kenya subscribers of Safaricom and Orange are bound to enjoy this service; whereas in Senegal, Orange and Tigo are involved as well as MTN and Airtel in Zambia.

Additionally, this Gmail SMS chat is available for subscribers of Israeli telecom mobile operator, Pelephone and Orange, just as in the Palestinian Territories, the operators of Jawwal and Wataniya Mobile are involved in delivering this offer to their subscribers.

However, in the United States, all the operators in the land are hooked to the service
To send a Short Messaging Service from Gmail Chat, subscriber or the Gmail account user has to enter his or her contact’s name in the ‘Search or invite friends’ box in the chat and select send SMS from the box of options that appears to the right of your contact’s name. Or, if you already have a chat window open for this contact, just click options and select send SMS.

Historically, Gmail gives people free web-based electronic mail (email) moderated by Google, which was initially proclaimed globally between March 31 and April 1, 2004, depending on the time zone of the world where one may be operating from.

Although, the Internet community thought initially it was an April fool’s Day stuff; a day when many people play tricks, which culminated in most people thinking then it might be a joke.

Google, however, said it was not a trick, which paved the way for lots of people to take the company seriously.

At first, a lot of people were pessimistic about Gmail based on their comments, especially on the
“terms of use”.

But currently the status of Gmail indicates that the first Gmail accounts were given to 1,000 people who either worked at Google or were friends and family of them, which they began to try out Gmail on March 21, 2004 and since then, several other people were allowed to test it.

On April 25, people who used the website Blogger.com a lot were given Gmail accounts, so also allowing them to invite other people.

Some of the Gmail features include letting users to keep 1000 megabytes (one gigabyte) of emails. That is, more than 166 times more than other websites like Yahoo! and Hotmail give people. This means people with Gmail can keep thousands of emails forever.

One thing going for Gmail it that is owners, Google has the largest search engine in the global internet space.

Google has since opened an office in Nigeria among other African countries.

Remmy Nweke:
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