IP: SMS messages to cellphones

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Resent-Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:22:25 -0700
> Resent-From: rjoffe () centergate com
> Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:22:19 -0700
> From: Rodney Joffe <rjoffe () centergate com>
>
>
> Hello Dave,
>
> I'd be interested in seeing if any of your IP readers have experienced
> this problem, and if they've discovered a magical cure...
>
> AT&T has some tens of thousands of AT&T cell phone subscribers in the
> Phoenix area. Like all cell phone providers, they have been assigned
> blocks of numbers for their subscribers. These blocks are reasonably
> large (I am in a block of 9,999 numbers - 602-418-xxxx).
>
> A local mortgage company has discovered a great way of generating
> business, by sending SMS ads to everyone in the block. The SMS service
> has no way of displaying the headers, and AT&T claims that there is no
> law against sending SMS messages to cell phones (I had thought the FCC
> had enacted regulations that prohibited sales or unsolicited commercial
> calls to cellphones). Their solution is to offer to change my cell phone
> number. Obviously this is a non-starter... the scam consists of sending
> the ads to the entire known block of AT&T assigned numbers so the
> problem would follow me.
>
> This looks like the spam issue all over again. Maybe market forces will
> cause AT&T to solve the problem - we're currently getting bids to
> replace our 25 AT&T phones. But of course the spammers/scammers probably
> know the npa/nxx's of all the cellular providers. This is rather
> troubling.
>
> --
> Rodney Joffe
> CenterGate Research Group, LLC.
> http://www.centergate.com
> "Technology so advanced, even we don't understand it!"(SM)



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