UNCW hopes to have a mass text messaging system available for students by the fall semester.

The system is being developed by two professors, Ron Vetter of the Department of Computer Science and Jeff Brown of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, in collaboration with ITSD. The pair started their own company, Mobile Education, LLC, and has been in talks with the university since February to work out the details of a collaborative effort to make an text messaging system available on campus.

Some of the services offered include emergency alerts, daily campus event notifications, interactive shuttle bus information, grade requests, an interactive movie schedule and campus opinion polls, all sent via text messages to students’ cell phones. After the first year, Vetter and Brown hope to add more services such as a text message that would alert a student when a seat opened up in a closed course.

“We expect this service to be especially popular,” Brown said.

For example, a student could send a text message to a five-digit number with the message “bus 601” and would get a reply with where on the route bus 601 currently was.

“This is revolutionary because many current similar services do not offer two-way interaction like this system will.

“It’s a big deal,” Brown said.

With the recent incident at Virginia Tech, many people are wondering if this text messaging system could serve as a better way to alert students in the case of an emergency. Mobile Education’s message engine had a theoretical limit of 50 messages per second, or 3,000 per minute, but the actual delivery rate depends on a number of different factors. Tests to determine how fast broadcast messages can be sent will start in fall 2007.

“We don’t want to promise something we can’t do,” Vetter said.

The system is optional, of course, and interested persons may register for the service on a Web site that is yet to be set up. UNCW will pay for access to the text message system and work with Mobile Education to develop the initial set of applications. Standard text messaging rates will still apply, though, based on a student’s provider.

UNCW is also talking to several cellular providers and may broker a special deal for students, much like UNCW has a deal with Dell for computers. The goal is for students to gain something in the transaction, such as better service plans, Vetter said.

Working with Mobile Education, UNCW hopes to have the system in place by fall 2007.