Relief tasks for text messaging

January 31st, 2006

Customers of all six mobile phone carriers in Britain can make donations to disaster relief funds for the areas hit by the Asian tsunamis by sending a text message, the companies said.

It is the first time the networks have joined up to enable text donations, they said. Customers of 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin Mobile or Vodafone can send the message "DONATE" to 83321, and £1.50, or $2.86, is added to their bill or deducted from their credit.

The money sent by SMS, or short message service, is donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee of Britain, of which Oxfam and the British Red Cross are members, the companies said.

Meanwhile, Orange's French unit has sent SMS messages to 3,200 customers who were traveling in the area of the tsunamis on Dec. 25 and 26, asking them to contact the French Foreign Ministry.

France Télécom, which owns Orange, said that the French government had requested the text messages to help account for its citizens. It is possible to identify mobile phone customers who were in the area and had their cellphones on through the registration of their phone numbers in a database of "roaming" customers.