Everyone wants information as soon as it is available and until recently, the internet was seen as the fastest way to deliver data to a mass audience.

With more than 19.47 million people regul-arly connecting to the net in the UK during 2000.

Things change. Now mobile phones have become the quickest way to get the latest news.

UK mobile users send more than 70 million text messages a month and Western European mobile phone users are sending more than a billion text messages a month, according to GSM World.

For many people, SMS (Short Message Service) is now the best way of getting the information they want, when they want it.

A new SMS-based technology called Customer Alerting has recently emerged. The idea is that participat-ing companies provide timely sports results, financial information and news headlines.

To recover their costs, they also supply SMS shopping vouchers, product data and other marketing information to mobile subscribers.

The market for these services is massive. It is estimated that alert-driven transactions will have a value of more than £60.9billion by 2005.

In the US, it is estimated that more than 70 per cent of network subscribers will be receiving alerts.

Leading the race to provide customer alerting technology world-wide is a highly- successful international company called Adept-ra, whose founder, Shoreham-based Eric Van der Kleij, is keen to make clear the real advantages of SMS alerting.

He said: "Imagine how good it would be if, a week before your anniversary, your favourite florist sent you a short text message reminding you of the anniversary and asking if you want to send flowers to your partner.

"And how about having the latest sports news delivered as the goals are scored or the points won? It needn't cost the end-user anything, because the service can be spon-sored by a supplier."

Adeptra is the first company to provide a GSM-based alerting service that offers end-users the option to act upon the information they have received, while at the same time providing the content owner with full online tracking and the option for the users to contact the company while their interest is at its absolute highest point.

GSM (Global System for Mobile Communic-ation) is the most commonly-used mobile telephony standard employed throughout the world.

Mr Kleij explained: "For example, a car manufacturer may wish to announce there is a special offer available to owners having their car serviced at their local dealer.

The user might receive a voice alert similar to this: 'This is a special offer from XYZ Motors. Our records show that your car, registration number X123 ABC, is due for its annual service. As a valued customer, we have reduced the cost of your next service by ten per cent. If you would like to book your car in, press 1 on your keypad now to be connected to your local dealer. Press 2 to be reminded in one week, or press 3 to cancel this message'. "

Due to the simplicity of this service, each dealer could tailor the message to suit their requirements or may wish to alert the customers to different offers or services.

When the user receives the alert, they could be connected to their closest dealer or directly back to a call centre.

This has the major advantage of allowing the company to see and gauge exactly the response of the alert campaign.

As it is a phone call, it is easy to see if the customer has received and heard the message and just done nothing, delayed for a week, cancelled the message, or taken advantage of the offer and booked the service there and then.

www.adeptra.net