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Amid all the utopian hoo-ha about our wireless future (do you really need a phone that can simultaneously play streaming video, download your favorite audio tracks, and let you call out for a pizza?), some decidedly non-glam apps are being ignored.

Text-based messaging may not have much of a gee-whiz factor, but it has one big advantage over third-generation networks, large-screen phones, and other bits of the wireless dream: It's here now.

"Text is available on every digital cell phone," says Marc Vanlerberghe, chief executive officer of Quios, a San Francisco-based company that provides wireless messaging services. The text he's referring to is short messaging service, which lets people send pithy, 160-character missives from their phones.

America lags far behind Europe in SMS use; according to Boston-based Strategy Analytics, 58 percent of cell phone users in Europe received SMS messages last December, compared to 11 percent in the U.S.

Mix and Match Standards

Part of the problem is that while every digital phone in the U.S. can receive text messages, only a handful of carriers support them. The confusion of U.S. wireless standards (TDMA, CDMA, GSM) doesn't help; AT&T subscribers, for example, can't exchange messages with Sprint customers.

Still, a growing number of companies provide SMS services. New York's Upoc, for example, offers subscription-based affinity groups--a wireless version of the Net's newsgroups. Currently, 35,000 members exchange brief text messages on special-interest topics. Those topics are specifically mobile: One of the most popular groups is New York Celebrity Sightings, which lets gawkers know where their favorite movie star has just been spotted.

Quios has a similar service, dubbed PlanetQuios, which boasts a whopping 1.8 million registered subscribers. To make sure that messages reach every subscriber, Quios had to bridge the carrier interoperability gap. The solution, according to Quios's Vanlerberghe, was to beef up its back-end technology with SMS centers, or SMSCs--combined hardware-software platforms that store and forward messages to the appropriate carriers. Those same carriers typically host and manage SMSCs, but Quios invested in its own.

Controlling SMSCs has the added bonus of improving the service's performance. If a carrier's SMSC gets overloaded, messages can be delayed for 30 minutes or more. With Quios operating its own SMSCs, says Vanlerberghe, it can ensure subscribers get their messages.

Short on Sizzle?

Meanwhile, Intanda, a San Francisco firm, has rolled out a text-based service that targets a narrowly defined, highly receptive audience: conference attendees. The company's product creates a directory of every attendee's cell phone at a conference or trade show. Using Conference Connection, conference-goers can quickly reach anyone at the show by firing off a message, and show organizers can beam schedule updates and event reminders to the entire audience.

The service works, says Intanda Chief Executive Officer Chris Misner, because it caters to the context. "If you send e-mail they're not going to get it, because they're not online," he explains. "And they're not in a situation where they can use voice." While the company won't divulge specific usage numbers, it notes that per-user messaging has doubled in the few conferences it has done so far, and registration has increased tenfold.

Text-messaging services like Conference Connection may be short on sizzle, but that's just fine with Misner. "We need to deliver something today, not two years from now," he says. "That doesn't mean the fanciest or most impressive; it's what can bring the results."

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