BICS expands arsenal of bypass-fighting products with Local SMS Firewall

Solution provides operators with a one-stop-shop to optimise SMS traffic and boost revenues

Brussels, July 17th, 2018 – BICS, a leading international communications enabler, has today announced the launch of Local SMS Firewall, a fully-managed end-to-end solution which allows operators to protect and optimise their SMS traffic and revenues. The product manages all A2P and P2P activity, filters it for unbillable traffic and provides a clear path to SMS monetisation.

SMS is one of the world’s most ubiquitous and reliable means of communications, with over 23 billion messages exchanged globally every day. Due to an increasing number of use cases and demand for customer engagement, SMS A2P is forecasted to grow significantly in the coming years. BICS created Local SMS Firewall in response to this market need, with mobile operators looking to enhance customer satisfaction and best leverage the increasing opportunities surrounding SMS A2P. The product also equips operators with a proactive tool in the industry’s ongoing fight against the erosion of revenue margins caused by bypass.

Supported by a team of dedicated bypass engineers, and resulting from a partnership with 6D Technologies, BICS’ Local SMS Firewall can filter, identify and block bypass traffic allowing operators to focus on monetising these traffic streams. It fully protects all SMS flows to the mobile operator and allows service providers to choose which traffic to filter. Because no additional relationships with third parties are required, nor any investment in hardware equipment or operational resources for monitoring and maintenance activities, the Local SMS Firewall provides a simple one-stop solution.

“BICS is dedicated to aiding operators in monetising their SMS assets,” said Bart Vandekerckhove, Head of Mobile Messaging at BICS. “SMS aggregators are always going to look for new ways to disrupt the industry, but with solutions like BICS’ Local SMS Firewall, the industry can protect both their customers and their revenues.”

He continued: “By stopping spoofed and faked messages, our Local SMS Firewall product releases the network bandwidth for revenue- generating traffic and prevents content providers from bypassing the SMS Termination fee. This means BICS is playing an important role in winning back some of the revenue operators lose to bypass each year.”

Rahul Kumar, Senior VP, Messaging at 6d Technologies added: “We’re proud to have worked with BICS to develop this solution. As a proactive technology partner, we aim to develop solutions that tackle current and evolving challenges in the market. This SMS Firewall product will allow operators to enhance their SMS traffic and optimise SMS revenues.”