Uku, Messente
This week we had an excellent podcast with Uku from Messente communications. He is the leader most members of the SMS industry point to as THE most trustworthy leader, he’s the real-deal.

He and Ira Cohen from MMDSmart at an event both said they would prefer published pricing for SMS, so they can focus on their value add, to help make the industry more honest. Unfortunately, their view is rather uncommon in the SMS industry.

During the Podcast Uku expressed his frustration with SMS scammers, you could see the raw emotion, we need to get this out in the open and find solutions. We’ve reviewed on this podcast several of them from TNID, TelecomsXChange, Sekura.id, etc. And Uku is evaluating them.

Shortly after the podcast a scam appeared abusing the Messente brand. If anyone sees it, please let Messente know. Here’s the link to Uku’s post on that. This shows how the scammers want to stop this problem being discussed, rather, let it fester.

Robert Vis stated clearly on the TADSummit Podcast SMS scammers should be jailed, they are crooks. They are pushing businesses away from SMS. American Express, Bank of America are just a few of the enterprises moving away from SMS. Traffic is down, and per SMS prices are up as carriers try to maintain revenues. There’s a vicious cycle of short-termism taking place that continues to make SMS less attractive as a channel. We must stop the coverups, get the truth out there, and solve the problems.

Ira Cohen had a great metaphor: Messaging fraud is an infection that has festered over the last 20 years, which may lead, despite the ubiquity and value of SMS, to business messaging’s demise. Can the industry get the medicine before it’s too late to save the patient? Pretending there’s no infection (cover up) is NOT the right approach.

Puja
The other interesting news this week was the protest at Puja from Troutman Amin LLP being kicked off a MEF panel. Ignore the style around this story, focus on FACTS.

1) Eric presented an analysis of a FCC filing about the TCR, his analysis was good.

2) Shortly afterwards Puja (partner at their law firm Troutman Amin) was kicked off a MEF panel on International Womens Day. Tone deaf behavior.

3) Puja was furious, she stood up for herself and protested outside the MEF. Now, how you view that protest is irrelevant, that’s a style issue, focus on the FACTS. Puja was kicked off a panel after Eric reviewed a FCC filing about the TCR. Dario. CEO of the MEF, claimed to the protesters Puja was too busy to attend the event. Eric/Puja stated that was a lie. Bottom-line: the MEF continues to cover up what’s going on at the TCR as one of its board members / sponsors is Kaleyra.

4) Then, overnight after the protest, Eric was now cool with MEF. He thinks the 3 female board members were introduced because of their actions. Those board members were announced in February. And Puja may be added to the board, they’ll need to become a member of MEF, and there will need a round of voting as far as I know of MEF board procedures. Eric is still waiting for GMoney (what Johnny calls Robert Gerstmann of Sinch and the new chairman of MEF).

5) I dunno what Puja thinks about this. I dunno if Eric will investigate further on the TCR, I’ve asked.

The TCR cover up continues by the MEF, they’re a laundromat, washing the industry’s dirty laundry. We’ve seen this week a public demonstration of how that cover-up continues.