USSD

The most basic introduction to USSD would be when you dial a certain number (#123#) and access a certain menu and select service, you are accessing a USSD menu. Eg: when a Etisalat user dials #141# , he accesses the Appzone developed by hSenidMobile. Currently, USSD services are spreading awareness into the community very fast as it is accessible through even the most basic phones.

USSD stands for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data. Wikipedia defines USSD as “ a protocol used by GSM cellular telephones to communicate with the service provider's computers. “
The difference between USSD and SMS include that the SMS uses store and forward method of message delivery. Short Message is delivered first to SMSC which will try to deliver the message to recipient. So SMS does not guarantee that message will be delivered instantly. USSD information is sent from mobile handset directly to application platform handling service. USSD is very user-friendly as well. If a particular user doesn’t want to visit all the menus and get the service, he can put the numbers and request the service in one dialing as well. (eg : *109*72348937857623#)

What happens when looking at USSD in a more technical perspective is..
• a user requests a service by entering a short code (e.g. *121* 676#) on his mobile phone.
• This code is passed across the mobile network to the USSD gateway and routed to the application.
• The application sends the response back to the subscriber through the USSD Gateway within the same USSD session.

One business sector which has rapidly improved with USSD is micro payment market. Users can transfer money from their mobile prepaid and post paid account to other mobile accounts. There will be a service number associated with it. When the user presses the number and dials, he will be presented with menus where he has to enter the amount and the mobile number to which the money needs to be transferred.

USSD offers many benefits for subscribers such as user-convenient, menu-based direct access from the mobile phone keyboard.Fast response time to service requests and easy access to value-added services. From the operators’ perspective, USSD reduces operational costs and increases ARPU by offering interactive services to all the customers.