Big carriers holding back on "short codes"

A story in BusinessWeek today recounts Rebtel Networks and their big plans for short codes in international calling. The process would be to send a text message containing the target number to Rebtel’s short code. A return text message would contain a local number which would connect to the international one. Great idea, right? It might even be a genius idea. However, their request for short codes was rejected by Verizon, T-Mobile, and Alltel — though they were approved by Sprint and AT&T. While or normal rhetoric might be to complain about this, we can’t see how anyone has the right. After all, as Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson said, those companies “don’t need to provide special access to our customers and network to a company that’s in direct competition with us.” We actually do buy into that a little bit. Clearly, since they own the network, they have a right to reject short code promotions — that is, until they figure out how to use it for their own gain. Some, though, don’t think it’s very fair at all.

“There’s no question that this sounds anticompetitive, but that doesn’t mean it’s illegal,” says Michael Salsbury, a partner at law firm Chadbourne & Parke and former general counsel for MCI, the long-distance carrier purchased by Verizon Communications (VZ). “It’s definitely improper, because I think from a consumer perspective [a phone company] should have its service compete on the merits of features and cost. It shouldn’t be blocking someone else.”

Hello? FCC? Yeah, we have something you’re going to have to deal with. There’s no doubt that short codes could be revolutionary in the cellular world. On top of international calls, there have also been requests to use short codes for banking. There are tons of possibilities, and it’s now in the hands of the FCC to figure out how we’re going to use this feature to our advantage. [BusinessWeek]]]>