sms

Mr. Bill Tam, esteemed CEO of EQO, recently suggested that I give Hotxt a try. Hotxt is an application that provides free text messaging between Hotxt users and credit based text messaging to non Hotxt users, all via GPRS.

There is one catch to using Hotxt, you must be based in the UK to use it at the moment. Lucky for me, EQO has a few Vodafone prepaid SIMs left over from business trips lying around, weehoo! I'm always delighted to forgo actual work to play with new toys. So I grab a spare phone, a Nokia 6270 to be exact, which is a pretty sweet phone, and throw in a Vodafone SIM. I spend five or so minutes setting up and testing the Vodafone prepaid access point, all is good, off I go...

The Hotxt signup process is web based of course and is pretty slick. You start off by entering your UK phone number, email address and desired Hotxt tag, sadly Spiderman (he's amazing) was taken so I had to go with something a little more generic, like my own name, boring. You are then asked to choose from Fresh, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and Vodafone as your carrier and from prepaid or contract as your plan type. Then you must select your phone make and model, of which Hotxt supports about 100 made by Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. Here comes the good part, Hotxt sends you a message that automatically configures your GPRS APN settings! Of course I learn this right after I entered my settings manually. We would love to do this, but of course it would be a logistical nightmare to provide this feature for the hundreds of carriers we support, someday hopefully...

Hotxt then sends you your four digit PIN number via SMS as well as a link to their download in a separate message. They have a flash player that instructs you how to get Hotxt installed and running, which got me going in a snap. Now to use Hotxt... Firist things first, I went onto the Hotxt website to claim my five free daily Hotxt Out credits, which let me send regular SMS messages to non Hotxt users. I tried sending a message to my phone here in Canada, didn't work. I found this weird because I managed to send a Hotxt invite SMS to my cell phone mere minutes earlier.

Okay, so it seems I can only message people in the Uk. Problem, I don't know anyone in the UK, well anyone readily available and using Hotxt. Here is where a normal man might just give up, but this is where a Customer Evangelist makes use of his masculine wiles. I opened up my Skype and searched for a girl in the UK, age 20-23, and in SkypeMe mode. I started to chat with the first girl that came up and explained my situation to her. Maybe it's because of my smoldering new Skype profile picture or just pure luck, but she decided to sign up for Hotxt and try it with me even though she'd never heard of it before. Still got it.

After exchanging a few Hotxt messages with my new friend I came to the conclusion that Hotxt is nothing more than text messaging over GPRS. I'm sorry, I don't know what I expected, but the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow turned out to be grandma's rock collection for me. Beyond the cost savings, only 2.5KB per message, there really isn't that much to it. If you hadn't used the phone before you'd think you were using the built in SMS interface. Oh well, I had fun trying and for people who pay a lot for SMS and have data plans, this is a great cost saving product.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist