South Africa’s largest mobile operator, Vodacom, has begun charging an 11c interconnection fee to carry short message service (SMS) text onto its network. The move comes after Cell C allegedly began offering wireless application service providers owned by Blue Label Telecoms the ability to send and receive messages to and from any operator using its network, breaking an industry “gentleman’s agreement”.

A2P text messages are SMSes that don’t originate from an individual’s handset. Until recently, the gentlemen’s agreement meant operators didn’t charge each other for terminating A2P traffic from other networks on their own networks.

In the early days of SMS, most messages were person to person in nature. Operators didn’t charge one another to terminate these messages on their networks because it was assumed that most messages would elicit a response, meaning both networks would make money from the charge they levied for the originating message. The policy was called “sender keeps all”, or SKA.

In a letter dated 26 March, Vodacom managing executive for wholesale services Minnie Maharaj said that as a result of the “abuse of the SKA regime by certain licensees, Vodacom has elected to allow all of its interconnection partners to send to it both P2P and A2P SMSs. Provided that the volumes of P2P SMSes sent and received are in balance, such SMSs shall continue to be terminated without any interconnection fees being charged.

“In respect of all A2P SMSes, Vodacom shall, however, with effect from 1 April 2013, charge interconnection fees at a rate of 11c/message.”

According to Maharaj, Vodacom has had to take this step because some operators “went out and saw this [SKA arrangement] as an opportunity to send commercial, A2P bulk SMSs”.

Maharaj says doing so is “unfair” and “goes against the principle of balance”. She says operators’ messaging systems do not differentiate between the different types of SMS. “We have to go in and determine what is a commercial or bulk SMS. It’s a complicated process.”