SPR–yet another TLA. Is this one useful?

Like we need another three-letter-acronym, but there we have it, a new one – SPR which stands for Single Point Reporting. In layman’s terms, that means if you’re being bullied online in any way, you can report it via a single button on your device. According to the email I received a couple of days ago, the MDA (Mobile Data Association), the Police and the Home Office have been looking at improving internet crime reporting for a couple of years, and they’re now looking to get wider feedback on the concept and put it into implementation. I have my doubts about it. I can’t help feeling that there is a vested interest from the parties involved rather than thinking about it from the perspective of the average internet user. But maybe that’s the cynic in me. Maybe this really is something that will improve crime reporting. I must admit, I’d prefer to find ways to reduce crime in the first place and maybe the ease of which it can be reported will make that happen. It should also be noted that online and mobile security is most definitely not my field of expertise so I’m passing the information on in case any of you fancy getting involved and feel it’s worthwhile pursuing. Details below:

For the last 2 years, MDA Chairman, Mike Hawkes, has been involved with the Police and Home Office in researching ways to improve (mobile) internet crime reporting.

Mike is a security specialist and the work he has been doing in this field has led to the development of an initial API to the police systems to enable single click transfer of all data required to progress and secure a prosecution from information held on a mobile handset.

It quickly became apparent that this work had implications across the whole communications domain and, as a result, MDA is seeking to widen the engagement of interested parties to all involved in internet and communications with the objective of establishing the Single Point Reporting (SPR) of data from whatever source, via a free open standard API meeting the security services' requirements.

With the express backing of West Yorkshire Police and the Metropolitan Police, as well as backing from Lord Harris, the Nominet Trust, and the Home Office, work is now advanced to the point where funding is being discussed by the police and Home Office to move the project forwards.

MDA has established web pages on its site to attract the wider industry and we are now actively recruiting our core teams and the support of the major players within mobile and elsewhere and planning a launch meeting in early July to set out the detailed workstreams and milestones.

The website landing page, together with links to the forms encouraging organisations to register interest, can be found at http://www.themda.org/initiatives/spr.php. If you have views on this subject and wish to be involved, please register your interest at http://www.themda.org/initiatives/spr.php.

SMS continues to grow in the UK

The Mobile Data Association has released it’s latest SMS and MMS usage figures for the UK. And interesting reading they are too. MMS or picture messaging is still a tiny proportion of overall messaging, but it is there and it is increasing.

According to the MDA, the continued growth of messaging is highlighted by a 2009 daily average of 265 million text messages and 1.6 million picture messages. 2009’s text message total was 96.8 billion (a 23% increase on 2008), while over 600 million picture messages were sent across the whole year.

Seasonal drivers still appear to propel the use of Picture Messaging, with 4.5 million picture messages being sent on Christmas Day itself – hence the spike in traffic in December -  while Network Operators’ figures also indicated an upturn in picture messaging during the recent cold snap. I’m guessing lots of people were comparing the snow in their area with friends and family.

Text messaging traffic over the recent festive period continued to rise proportionately.

Christmas Day    Increase on      NYE/ Day      Increase on 
2009                       2008                       2009/10                  2008
441,805,870          31%                   874,033,799               21% 

Assessing the findings of the MDA’s report, Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst at Quocirca, said: "New generation touchscreen handsets and the bundling of SMS messages into many tariffs has made texting easier, and seen its role develop. Now it is not only a convenient medium for a quick chat with friends, but also a way of participating in television voting and raising funds for needy charities. When a powerful call to action is given, the population of the UK often turn first towards their mobile phones." This is borne out with the recent campaigns to raise funds for BBC Children in Need and the DEC appeal for Haiti.

Q4 2009 Statistical findings

Text Messaging (SMS)

Total number of text messages (SMS) sent in:
2009 total 96.8 billion
2008 total 78.9 billion
2007 total 56.9 billion

Video and Picture messages (MMS)

Campaigns like the Radio 1 Free MMS Day appear to have had an effect on the figures by attracting 42,000 messages to the BBC radio station in just 24 hours with viewers contributing to an online mosaic of all their images (moderated of course). Let’s see if MMS continues to grow in 2010. The growth rate between 2008 and 2009 was just 9%, averaging 1.6m MMS per day. However, I’m in no doubt that SMS will continue to grow in 2010 and beyond.

Total number of picture messages (MMS) sent in:
2009 total 601 million
2008 total 553 million
2007 total 449 million

 

 

Source: Mobile Data Association / Text.It

Technorati Tags: sms,mms,messaging,picture messaging,text messaging,statistics,mda,text.it,mobile

Mobile Data usage is up in the UK

The Mobile Data Association (MDA) has just released it's figures for Q4 2006 and they're impressive. In the final quarter of last year, a total of 45.6m users were recorded as having used their phones for downloads and browsing the mobile internet and this averages about 15m each month up from 13m in the previous quarter. December boasts the highest average with 15.9m during that month - I wonder if getting a new handset at Christmas had anything to do with it - I expect so. And the trend is on the up so it looks like 2007 will be a year for mobile internet.

The MDA has lots of useful information about phones and the mobile internet so it's worth checking out. If you're after some help to set up your mobile phone for wap or mobile internet, then go here. And if you're after some useful or entertaining wap sites to view on your handset, then you could do worse than checking this list out.

Don't forget to watch your data charges though and if you're planning to use data services, then it's worth changing to t-mobile's web 'n walk or Three's x-series to avoid billshock.