_________   SWAT MAGAZINE ISSUE TWENTY: AUGUST 1999   __________
  /         \___________________________________________/          \
 /	                  The joys of SMS                           \
/                             By Brakis  	                     \
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Before we begin I would just like to say HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Anyway now down to business. Yesterday when I was talking with one of
my American Journalist buds over a few bottles of San Miguel he said to me
that his real opinion was that "Europe was backward and not yet ready to
take on their kind of technology". After laughing so hard I nearly had to use
one of the San Miguel bottles as a urine recepticle I courtiously reminded
my yankee mate that had it not been for "Backward Europe" then he would
not be able to call himself American he would just have been called stupid
and illiterate. Anyway to demonstrate my point I asked him if it was possible
to send an SMS message across networks between Alabama and New York his
answer was of course No this is because America is so far behind Europe
in terms of Cellular technology that they only just recently got their
fucked up billing system sorted out. In the USA it had only recently
become possible for a caller to a mobile phone to pay for the cost of the
call, before this the mobile user recvieving the call had to pay the entire
cost of the call. This situation of course led to people just leaving
their mobiles switched off (Which kind of defeats the purpose of having a
mobile). Anyway back to the back bone of the article, SMS. In Europe there
is a quite different situation as far as SMS messaging goes we are able to
send messages to virtually any state, and the amount of SMS comm traffic
heading through this wonderful union of ours is over a billion messages a
month.
    For those of us that move outside the recognised circles of law abiding
citizens this gives us an excellent form of communication particularly
if robberys,ambushes or other such large scale projects arw being undertaken.
it provides certain advantages over other forms of communication namely that
it is the cheapest and is not monitored in anyway and has a far greater
range e.g across Europe. To give you an idea of what the best systems are
here is a brief overview of the four UK networks to choose from and what
there advantages and disadvantages are. Before we do this I would also like
to point out that SMS messages can be sent via the internet also.....

Network Profiles:

Orange (Hutshison telecom)
98 % UK coverage not bad service however SMS can only be recieved on the
PAYT, you will need a contract phone to send.

One2one (Mercury)
They have been promising SMS for severel months but are still yet to deliver.

BTCellnet (BT)
99% UK coverage excellent range abroad, both contract and PAYT send
and recieve.quite cheep as well. (This is the reccomended SWAT service)

Vodaphone
98% same as Cellnet except a little more expensive than Cellnet.

To be honest I think Cellnet is your best bet for a good SMS service anyway
enjoy the mag and keep sending in your requests for more information.
And when you go through your daily lives just remember this ancient chinese
proverb : Any man can shag a melon but only the man who really knows how to
use his willy can pierce it all the way through.


Brakis 99