Kokomlemle, Accra, Ghana – SMSGH, the leading mobile messaging and content aggregation in Ghana, today announced the official release of the SMSGH Unity USSD APIs as the newest addition to its messaging platform. This unveils a new capability that dramatically makes mobile messaging even very interactive.

In its continuous quest to deliver a world-class messaging platform with offerings for unbeatable data processing synergy, service innovation, scalability, and ultimately, channel convergence, SMSGH has taken a significant leap forward with the introduction and availability of USSD API and USSD Service Codes on its messaging platform.

USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a GSM based communication technology used to transact session-based messages between mobile phones and application servers aggregating on a mobile network. It is very interactive and normally faster than the conventional means of messaging as mobile phone subscribers simply dial a service code to access and interact with a menu of services. (eg. *714#).

Services ideal with USSD as the bearer include mobile chat, m-commerce, mobile banking, call-related services and any other service that requires interaction between the user and application servers such as below;

• Menu Browsing
• Callback Service
• “Pull” based Services like informational services
• News
• Weather
• Movies and Theatre Listings
• Sports Update
• Currency Update
• Stock Market
• Telephone Directory
• Voting / Polling
• Flash Emergency Information
• Travel Reservations (Airline / Hotel)
• Sponsored Menu Item / Advertisement
• Companies / Shops / Theaters can get listed on the Menu and promote their services
• Contests and Tele-voting
• Virtual Money Transaction
• Interactive Interface to Corporate ERP
• Mobile Marketing, etc.

USSD is most often used in conjunction with SMS especially for subscription based content services where mobile users subscribe to content services via USSD and receive such contents via SMS. In such cases, SMS is used to “push” a reply or updates to the handset and USSD is used for command-and-control only.

The SMSGH Unity USSD API enables service providers to deploy applications on multiple networks in one seamless integration — no need to implement different APIs for different networks.

SMSGH, named in the February 2012 edition of the prestigious Forbes Africa Magazine’s list of the ‘TOP 20 TECH START UP COMPANIES IN AFRICA’ aims at blending communication, content and commerce to create Africa’s most useful technology aggregation company.