Mobile Nigeria Forum

Uzochi Jacob (please register soon) asks:

Seun,

Please could you confirm if Mtel has opened up their SMS circuit to other Mobile Networks. If not, when are we expecting this please?

I can't confirm from M-TEL subscribers directly, but the answer from the news seems to be a resounding "yes!" if the destination is MTN, 'maybe' if Globacom and 'come back later' if you're trying to send SMS to Vmobile.

Here is a quote by the chief marketing officer of MTEL, Mr. Edwin Moore Momife on the 26th of January:

"I can tell you today that SMS with MTN is working perfectly, 100 percent. SMS with Glomobile is building up, is starting to work very well. SMS with Vmobile is undergoing testing."

http://allafrica.com/stories/200501270164.html

So, yes, you should be able to send SMS messages to Globacom and MTN from an MTEL line, and to Vmobile very soon.  It would be riduculous for MTEL not to deal with this SMS issue when they say they are moving to GPRS by March.   On the other hand, what would happen is that MTEL subscribers would shun SMS and start using e-mail GPRS exclusively to communicate.  That's not such a bad thing.