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Media Contact: Marc Abshire
571.434.5151
marc.abshire@neustar.biz
CTIA - The Wireless Association® and NeuStar Expand Common Short Code (CSC) Agreement, Enabling Broader Appeal to Consumer Brands
WASHINGTON, D.C. February 6, 2006 - CTIA - The Wireless Association® and NeuStar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR), a leading provider of essential clearinghouse services to the global communications and Internet industry, today announced the planned expansion of the highly successful Common Short Code (CSC) program. NeuStar operates the CSC Registry under agreement with the CTIA which serves as the CSC program administrator.
Today, CSCs are five-digit numbers. Under the terms of the agreement, CTIA and NeuStar will expand the pool of available CSCs to include six-digit codes in the CSC Registry, thus increasing the amount of usable CSCs to nearly one million. CTIA and NeuStar plan to roll out this capability to potential subscribers in Spring 2006.
Using CSCs, advertisers and content providers have been able to extend targeted service offerings directly to the handsets of more than 200 million mobile subscribers of participating wireless carriers. Examples of popular applications include downloads of content such as ring-back tones and games; mobile search by text messaging; participation in mobile blogs, chat, polls, and quizzes; and subscriptions to news and weather alerts. According to the latest CTIA research, over seven billion text messages were sent during June 2005-a 154% increase over the previous year.
In addition to the expanded pool offered by six-digit CSCs, five-digit CSCs will continue to be supported, and new five-digit codes will remain available.
Please refer to the CSCA website ( www.usshortcodes.com ) for more information, updates and commercial availability. |
