SMS-all, previously known as Chopaal, happens to be the pioneer in text based group messaging service in Pakistan.
Idrees Butt, company COO tells me that SMS-all now houses over 400,000 established communities, with 1.5 million registered users, 2.5 million users through corporate clients and has exchanged whopping 4 billion text messages on its network till date.
Services
SMS-all is a group text messaging (SMS) service for cellphones, where users can send a text message to reach one whole group of people who can return the response (SMS) as well. For the purpose, you can go to SMS All website, create a group (or join an existing community), add your friends and start communicating with them as a group.
SMS-all say that people use its services to discuss interests and hobbies, share news, views and gossip, inform and update others, coordinate meetings and events or to just chat with friends.
For detailed information and working procedures you can visit FAQ page on SMS-all website here.
Company background
Back in 2007, Dr. Umar Saif gave away this idea of group messaging service to four students graduating at LUMS, explaining that such a solution would fill the communication needs for groups and those who want broadcast channels using cell phones.
Asim Fayaz, Marium Afzal, Fahad and Ali Rehan conceived the idea and built an in-house system using regular mobile phone to send out text messages to a group of people, who could essentially communicate back to the system by replying to same text message.
For first year or so, system was made available to LUMS students/faculty only. Later, when it went public, Chopaal was scaled up by using sophisticated hardware to stretch system capacity and to support more users.
After earlier team departed, Dr. Umar Saif took the product along with new team to next level. They renamed the service to SMS-all.
Currently, Dr. Umar Saif shares company stakes along with Mr. Idrees Butt, COO and Waqas Farooq, company CTO.
Corporate solutions
Along with serving group messaging needs to over 1.5 million registered users, SMS-all is now aggressively working on providing communication solutions to its corporate customers. For the purpose they offer their clients to get their messages delivered to their respective end users against a tariff agreed mutually.
Though they didn’t reveal us their pricing structure for corporate users but maintained that businesses, educational institutes and political parties are on their client list.
Just to mention, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (short code 80022) and PMLN (short code 80011) are using SMS-all services for sending SMS based updates to followers.
Beaconhouse School System, Salamat school, Metro cash and carry and Oxford University Press are other notable clients at SMS-all.
Future Outlook
With 111 million mobile subscribers in the country (compared with 20 million internet users in total), SMS based communication channels are clearly of high demand in the market. SMS-all has done all the hard work to be placed well in a competitive environment to offer effective communication tools to individuals and businesses alike.
Given that competition in SMS group messaging services is there, it is likely that quality of services will be maintained along with affordable prices.
SMS ALL Crap……Pring Rocks :-)
I have a strong feeling that Dr.Umar have this habbit of stealing student works.
check out http://punjabstudy.com/edu-news/lums-dr-umar-saif-wins-rs-25-million-grant
Couldn’t agree more. After the 4 students departed who created the product, he handed it over to 4 others, yet none of the students have any stakes? How is that fair and that too coming from a teacher?
I’ve personally talked to students who were part of this or know Dr. Saif, as a student, or in person, and honestly, none of them appreciate him.
Also I constantly keep reading about millions of grants from here and there and the recent one by the Google. He must have accumulated several crores by now while the only products released are worth few thousand dollars.
SMS All Farag hai :)) Pring be Kuch Din se Band hai :)
Koi New New Servies Hai Tu bolooo yaaar
Was this a paid post? if yes then you should mention it in the title and if not then there was no need of it.
Join Smile this newly entered in the market but their network seems quite strong from core hardware.
Send JOIN on 8333 or 03318190484
expensive servise
expensive service no website like twitter pring mbl se msg dlt ho gya to gya no record
is this free of cost? can any one tell me more about sms all?
Its not free, you have to pay 60 per sms. many more complication like “load” in service.
i suggest pring if you want big or small sms group.
Im using pringit service for my website. http://www.pringit.com/awamiweb
Earlier i was using sms-all but their load and quota system is not user friendly.
IS THIS FREE OF COST?
So, four LUMS students ‘conceive’ Chopaal, they then ‘depart’ and Umar Saif, Idrees and Waqas magically become owners of SMS-All leaving the departed nothing. Sounds like a faculty member using students and giving them nothing in return. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
(Full disclosure: I’m founder of Pring, which is a social network, not SMS group messaging)
I wish those student claims there stakes in sms-all, and should complain to concerned authorities to get justice and reveal the truth behind Dr.Umar Saif, and Idrees.I would appreciate comments directly from those students if they are here reading this post.
P.S:If you guys have seen the movie based on facebook “The Social Network” where student sued mark for stealing idea.
Totally bakwas. I have subscribed for news group. After charges deduction, recived only one 4month old news.
@Nash. I am surprised that someone like you can stoop so low as to resort to personal attacks. If you don’t know, you shouldn’t comment on someone like Dr. Saif’s stature. He started chopaal, supported it out of his own pocket and kept it alive even when some students left for grad school or jobs. He has run it, without making any money, for more than 4 years. For those of us who know him, we are amazed that he can run such things with such zeal, and without regard for how much money he pours into countless ventures he has started.
At the same time, I respect your work, but I think you need to show some maturity towards people who are helping start an entrepeneurial culture in Pakistan — Dr. Saif is certainly one of them. I hope you learn to respect and learn from such people. You seem to have a long way to go in your career; competition shouldn’t force to abunden your respect for those who deserve it.
P.S. I am a student of LUMS and know the actual facts of chopaal (smsall) and many other research projects of Dr. Saif. I wish there were more people like him, and more people like you who are helping developing an entrepreneurial culture in Pakistan.
To me it looks like that you are actually one of them, otherwise you wouldn’t be speaking up like that
Guys! for those who have doubts, check out this post
http://telecompk.net/2012/01/30/review-smsall-discover-the-real-power-of-group-messaging/comment-page-1/#comment-21759
Both SMSAll and Pring doing great but I like SMSAll because Pring is boring…
yar es group mein kis tarha shamil hona he
hello
GroupSMS.pk is the first one to introduce this Group SMS as Free service
join .barish
how different companies have their text services to their customers like dewoo ufone or any shop like warda, nashat, etc from which plat form they have their services ??? any one can help me ?
join csu
smsall