Mission critical systems underpin operations and industries that form the essential backbone of economies and governments. Notable examples include first responders such as the police, firefighters and paramedics, as well as sectors such as the utilities and railway. Nevertheless, these systems are susceptible to various performance, operational and security issues, requiring real-time communications to ensure that the slightest disruption can be addressed and mitigated in time.

As critical operations tend to be sparse and may sometimes involve thousands of personnel, detecting and communicating issues within these environments can be an uphill task. In the case of first responders, for example, army personnel, firefighters and emergency workers may need to be deployed at a plane crash site within minutes, involving the coordination of many different teams and departments.

Given that all critical operations are essentially ‘critical’, and most often happen in scenarios where default networks such as the Internet may not be the fastest, safest and most easily available option, SMS offers a superior communications method that ensures immediate reach, boasting not only high read rates but also an omnipresent channel that is accessible to all.

Integrating in-silo response systems into a single communications channel

For large scale operations involving multiple taskforces or units, SMS can address a fragmented communications framework where proprietary and disparate radio networks are used by different teams, resulting in delays and miscommunications. SMSEagle SMS/MMS Gateway, for example, addresses this by integrating all touchpoints involved in a critical mission into its database of recipients, allowing key updates and commands to be broadcasted to everyone involved. This enables operations to be scaled accordingly, with messages cascaded quickly to team members, for example the entire field force of a power plant.

In the case of IoT and IIoT, sensors and third party devices linked to SMSEagle SMS/MMS Gateway can enable the real-time monitoring of critical facilities such as nuclear plants and oil rigs. For example, routine power grid inspections and monitoring of metro trains can leverage SMS-based communications to enable sensors to deliver operational logs to the controlling unit on information such as transmission load or journey times. Likewise, operational and maintenance updates can be sent to the team on the ground and also relayed to the sensors directly via SMS. SMS-based surveillance and management also helps in detecting disasters such as fires. For example, the SMSEagle integration plugin with AVTECH Room Alert or Pfau LISA enables fire and rescue departments to detect fires and floods in real-time where sensors alert them via automated SMS notifications. Where advanced API-based application links are in place, these notifications can be returned with automated responses that trigger, for example, connected sprinklers or water pumps to turn on automatically.

Keeping everyone informed

SMS plays another key role in mission critical communications. It enable vital instructions and information to reach the most affected parties – the victims. Using dedicated SMS channels, victims can send messages to first responders and establish communications where all other means of reaching out are exhausted. For example, first responders can get in touch with members of a local community during a breakout of a pandemic. Likewise, in the case of a heist where residents are locked up in an apartment or dormitory, solutions such as SMSEagle SMS/MMS Gateway provide a ready means for passing updates and keeping the victims informed, and also enable critical information provided by a single victim to be looped back into the system and broadcasted to all other victims affected by the same emergency.

SMS on a mission

SMS messaging via SMSEagle SMS/MMS Gateway not only makes the most out of existing cellular infrastructure and investments, but provides an easy to integrate, forward solution that is compatible with automated response systems and is highly configurable to the needs of any critical mission.

• Suggested reading: Maximizing Emergency Response Efficiency: VERDI’s Successful Deployment of SMSEagle Hardware SMS Gateway

A picture is worth a thousand words! Have you ever wondered why? A picture conveys information more effectively than words and can tell a story as well as many, many words.

How can you leverage the power of the visual medium to grow your business?

MMS messaging can help you grab your audience’s attention and help your business get an edge over the competition.

What is MMS?

MMS is the acronym for Multimedia Messaging Service; a technology built using the same technology as SMS to allow users to send multimedia content. You can use MMS to send pictures, audio, phone contacts, and video files.

Benefits of MMS for Business

• Global coverage: You can reach 100% of global mobile phone users, including 620 million global users who use feature phones.
• High open rates: Messages sent via MMS have stratospheric open rates of up to 98%.
• Longer message lengths: With MMS, you can send longer messages with up to 1600 characters. The limit on the MMS message size varies with the service provider.
• A richer customer experience: With multimedia content, you can grab the viewer’s attention.
• Increased engagement: Multimedia messaging leads to higher engagement levels: not only do more people read the messages and interact with the content, but they are also up to 8 times more likely to share it with friends.
• Branded messaging: You can send a message that includes your brand logo.

Let’s discover how businesses in different commercial sectors can use the power of MMS to drive business growth.

Retail

• Coupons and promotions: You can use MMS to share scannable QR codes and coupon picture messages that customers can redeem in stores and rich messaging features like GIFs, videos, and sound clips add to the experience.
• Product registration: You can invite buyers to register their products the easy way: by sending a photo of a bar code associated with the product.

Insurance

• Customers can speed up claim processing by sending photos through MMS.

Customer Support

• Customers can send pictures of defective products. Your support team will immediately know what is wrong and can suggest a solution or send the right team to solve the customer’s problem.
• You can send audio with instructions on how to install a product. This helps the customer and reduces your support costs.

Travel and Tourism

• Airlines can send tickets and boarding passes via MMS. Customers don’t have to worry about losing these documents as they are safe on their phones.
• Travel agencies can use custom imagery during marketing for special deals and promotions.

Food and Restaurants

• Marketing messages with images of new products can increase anticipation and drive sales.

Automotive

• Automotive companies can use personalized images for marketing new and existing products and driving sales.

Conclusion

With text, your creativity is limited. Unless you are Shakespeare, there is only so much that you can say with words.

With images and video, your creativity is unleashed. There is no limit to what you can communicate through a properly designed image or video.

Use MMS to unleash your creativity and use the power of the visual medium to drive business growth.