Author Topic: SMS Development for Developing Regions  (Read 1489 times)

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Offline benc

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In regards to M-Pesa , it functions based off of a pay as you go model, where mpesa credits (kenyan shilling) are added to your account VIA SMS or by visiting a Vodaphone retailer to physically add money to your account. Here is a wiki with the history of its beginnings. There are many retailers for Vodaphone who are licensed to set up your account for M-Pesa, and they need photo ID's as verification (not something BTS necessarily desires). It might be possible to set up a wallet which would take M-Pesa credits easily enough and performs basic BTS services, given that there exists a service which functions as a transfer service between Bitcoin and M-Pesa. ( Bitpesa )

I just found this conference that takes place in Africa on April 16th and 17th. I think if were looking to get into the market in Africa, either via Mpesa or by other means, we need someone to be at the conference. The founder of BitPesa will be there  as well so this could be a good way to  gain an inroads into understanding how their service came to be, as well as recruiting BTS delegates from Africa.

Offline bubble789

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someone based in Africa should start a delegate and start hitting on this !?

Offline matt608

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I completely agree Africa is a prime market for bitUSD, bitGOLD and sending and receiving via SMS is needed to penetrate it.  It would be worth looking at m-pesa and learning how people use it.  Getting people on the ground in Africa is essential for anything to come of it.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2015, 09:09:56 pm by matt608 »

Offline benc

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I think its fantastic that we are able to connect via email (given a bit of modification) but that is not exactly what I was saying. The African innovation scene seems to be one based of a very practical approach to problems that they encounter. I'm curious if BTS were available in this format would people in a place like Africa want to adopt it? Considering the fact that they already to mobile banking, this could be a good avenue to grow BTS. I think the ability for BTS to work in areas without a super-fast internet connection and massive processing power ( like via email) is something that we should look into in the future.

Offline jsidhu

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bitshares mail has ability to send tx's like they were mailboxes.. and can extend to send real mail since some delegates would be connected via smtp..

As far as I know this would give ability to send money via email (bitshares email and smtp email).. and allow for people with phones to send and recv coins with their phone email clients... and not rely on text messaging which is different for every phone.. and now ppl use whatsapp so thats different too.. but wouldnt be hard to do ... I just htink hooking into email is probably better because we probably woudl have other services such as user to user msging and profile data sharing like facebook etc..

This would ensure anyone with any client can send/recv coins aslong as they have email capabilities.
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Offline benc

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Recently, I was thinking about the lite wallet and mobile development in Bitshares and I remembered watching this TED Talk a few months ago and being very impressed by it. An SMS service using BTS could facilitate transactions which currently (due to hardware requirements and a lack of fast internet) are unable to even access BTS.

In a larger sense, many of the people who would use an SMS service don't have bank accounts, and their currencies are not nearly as stable as if they had a BitUSD, BitCNY, or BitGOLD asset. Allowing them to have a private, secure stash of wealth (not under their mattress) would do a lot for facilitating development.

I found evidence of one mobile banking system already in place by Vodaphone and others examples of unique innovations such as SMS weather services, cloud storage, and job boards. (Parent link for all of these innovations.)

Does BTS have anything like this in development for unique market penetration?