At the Mobile World Congress we spoke with Sisco Sapena, CEO of Lleida.net, a Catalonia-based SMS operator. It has agreements with more than 1.000 carriers worldwide and has developed an international communication network via SMS reaching 200 countries.

South African mobile cellular phone companies have been praised for implementing a free “Call Me Back” short messages (SMS) information technology.

The two-day Mobile Web Africa conference was mainly focusing on harnessing the potential of the internet and applications on mobile devices aimed at improving people’s standards of life through affordable and readily accessible technology.

TextMagic, a provider of online text messaging solutions for businesses, developers and consumers, announced the release of its new Bulk SMS Gateway API.

The company claims it will facilitate innovation by developers to integrate text messaging services into new and existing web and back-office custom applications, potentially reaching more than three billion active SMS text message service users.

INTERVIEW: Rick Breslin, Principal of Hello Vino, tells smartphone.biz-news how the food pairing and wine suggestion tool came about - and the team's plans for both monetising it and capitalising on location-based data.
The California-based company launched an iPhone app in June but it offers a multi-platform delivery - mobile web, Web and SMS.

While the African teleco market may not capture the headlines as much as other parts of the world, that's not to say it's being overlooked by the industry.
So it's good to see the organisers of West & Central Africa's largest telco event announcing record pre-registered attendance for the AfricaCOM event in Abuja, Nigeria.

INTERVIEW: As mobile operators in Europe rush to comply with legislation to protect consumers from massive roaming and SMS/MMS bills, Amit Daniel, vice president of marketing for Starhome, tells smartphone.biz-news about the challenges - and the advantages - the new rules will bring.

Location-sharing start-up Wizi has announced the release of SMS with Location for BlackBerry.
The application adds a new option to BlackBerry contacts allowing users to send an SMS with their actual position or the location where they are heading.

The number of people in the US using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled in the last year.
An estimated 63.2 million people accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, up from 36.9 million doing so in January 2008, according to figures released today from comScore.