The world’s A2P market is going from strength to strength as more and more brands trust in SMS messaging to support their product and service delivery.

One country, three operators and over 1000 A2P tests on each network. Haud ‘s research team wanted to get a snapshot of how much revenue operators are losing from A2P messages generated by tech giants including Facebook, Google, WeChat and Microsoft. On this webinar, we outline the results of a Haud technical investigation designed to understand how SIMbox fraud and grey / illegitimate routes contribute to revenue loss.

The fragmentary nature of the whole A2P lifecycle business fundamentally impedes the full realisation of this burgoing business opportunity.

Nefarious organisations, as well as lone operators, can essentially eat-up a significant portion of Application-to-Person messaging (it goes beyond SMS) revenues from Mobile Network Operators with no considerable investment requirement. As indicated in a previous article which focused on SIM box activity in Europe, SIM box activity is wide-ranging and global. A $60 billion business opportunity is at stake here. 

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) which was the primary messaging system used by subscribers to check their balance, top-up and access value-added services. Still widely used today, USSD communication (which rests primarily on signalling infrastructure – not data) is now currently being used to terminate A2P communication. 

How can Mobile Network Operators prevent SIM box activity from punching through their A2P business?

Mobile Network Operators are facing a plethora of challenges that are being triggered by the ever-evolving nature of their business, as this is shifting from a communication provider to a data platform and network business, with emphasis on the value chain. This change has brought about significant shift pains in the business model design, along with the investment required for more capable networks to cater to the looming hyper-connected future.