Vodafone UK to start blocking WAP Push

Vodafone UK to start blocking WAP Push SearchSearch
Author Message
Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 2036
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 - 12:41 am:   

FYI ... unfortunately I do not have any contact information at Vodafone to forward for getting on this white-list, but this is information that all content providers should be aware of ...

Vodafone UK have recently announced that they will introduce a content control mechanism on the Vodafone UK network, to protect minors from accessing inappropriate content. Vodafone plan to control access to content by filtering access to WAP URLs for all network users. When a user has opted out of the control mechanism (by physically proving that they are an adult), then this restriction will NOT apply.

So from all content providers that are running content download services in the UK, Vodafone require a list of the URLs used for downloading this content. These URLs will then be added to the filter. URLs used for downloading content will be blocked with access only permitted to users that have opted out (as above).

Vodafone reportedly plans to implement this very quickly. For more information, you should contact your SMS service provider, so that they can interface with Vodafone. Vodafone is asking all SMS service providers for a list of host names that are being used for WAP content download, and asking whether they provide adult or non-adult content.

At present it is unclear whether the blocking is going to occur at the WAP push level, or if it is the Vodafone WAP gateway that will be performing the blocking (I suspect the latter).
Anonymous
 
Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 06:21 pm:   

How does this affect a NowSMS system that sends both adult and non-adult content?

When an MMS message is sent to a handset from the nowSMS platform I believe the URL sent to the phone will consist of the hostname of the nowSMS server and the directory & name of the MMS file.

Eg: http://localhost/220031009/20/BDFCBE13.mms

We have a requirement to be able to send MMS messages to handsets with a different URL dependant on the content that is configurable dependant on some part of the message we send to the nowSMS server to deal with these Vodafone requirements.

EG: we might want to send out:
http://localhost/type-a/220031009/20/BDFCBE13.mms
And
http://localhost/type-b/220031009/20/BDFCBE13.mms

Alternatively we could have the nowSMS configured with multiple hostnames:

EG: we might want to send out:
http://localhost-a/220031009/20/BDFCBE13.mms
And
http://localhost-b/220031009/20/BDFCBE13.mms

Is this possible by logging on as a different VASP or some other means or do we need a different nowSMS server for each unique URL ?

Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support
Board Administrator
Username: Bryce

Post Number: 2078
Registered: 10-2002
Posted on Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 06:27 pm:   

We are providing some flexibility in this area effective with the next release of NowSMS. A beta of v5.50 will be available for download in the next few days.

Of course, the easiest and cleanest way to accomplish your requirements is with two servers that have completely separate identities.

(It doesn't have to be two NowSMS servers. You could use MMSCOMP to build pre-compiled MMS messages, store them on your own server, and just use NowSMS to send out the MMS notifications.)

However, considering this move by Vodafone, and the fact that other operators are likely to follow, we thought it would be best to implement a solution where the host name in the MMS notification could vary based upon some user specified criteria.

To offer the most flexibility, so that all of the APIs for submitting MMS through NowSMS could be covered, the way that we are going to provide a solution for this is by allowing for a table of different MMS senders (from address in MMS envelope) to map to different host names in the MMS notification.

So if an MMS message has a from address of adult@domain.com, this might map to a different host name in the MMS notification than the default host name configured as "Local Host Name or IP Address" in the NowSMS MMSC configuration.

You will need to manually edit the MMSC.INI, create a section titled [HostNameSenderOverride], and under that section, define any overrides, e.g., adult@domain.com=adult.domain.com; +447777777777=adult.domain.com. Then any MMS messages that are routed by the system which have the corresponding from/sender address will use an alternate name in the notification.

You do need to wait for the v5.50 release, which is due to enter beta any day now, in order to be able to apply this "HostNameSenderOverride" feature.

-bn