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Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ page). Below, I’ve tried to answer the most common questions visitors to this our Web site may have. If you find that your question is not answered on this page, please email me NESRBTA@andywebb.org.uk or call me at 01224 824198. How will I know you’re not ripping people off? What are the advantages of ABZ-Text over other systems? What are the disadvantages of ABZ-Text over other systems? What do I need to be able to receive messages? How quickly will messages be received? Will I receive news of every rare or scarce bird seen in NE Scotland? Will I receive all news posted onto ABZ-Rare-Birds Yahoogroup? Will I receive all news that goes out on the pagers? How many people are currently subscribed to the service? Are there any rules I must abide by? Is there any other information I can get about Vodafone’s MDS service? I want to go ahead and subscribe, how do I do this?
Someone finds or hears about a rare or scarce bird. After checking that it is OK for the message to go out to the grapevine, they send a message to Vodafone’s Message Distribution Service directly by text message, email or via the MDS web site, or they phone the message bureau and use an operator to enter the message. They do not wait to put the news out - the whole point of this system is that it is designed to be quick. The message is sent immediately to all subscribers by their preferred method for receiving messages, which can be a text message to their mobile phone, a pager message or an email. It costs just under £11 for 12 months membership if you are a Vodafone mobile phone customer, or just under £22 for 12 months if you’re a customer of another mobile phone service provider (e.g. O2, T-mobile, Orange etc) or you want messages sent to your pager or by email. These prices include VAT charged by Vodafone. I am not VAT registered so do not charge VAT on top of this. Thereafter, messages are charged at 10.2p per message (+VAT) if you’re with Vodafone or are charged at your normal rate for receiving messages for all other systems (usually free). I anticipate that we will receive 150 – 300 messages per year depending on how good a year it is. The average annual cost for the last two years has been about £20. If you want a double subscription (e.g. receive messages to your mobile and by email) you will need to pay twice. How will I know you’re not ripping people off? Anyone who subscribes to pager services or to Birdguides text service will know how much these cost – significantly more than you’ll pay for this system. However, I produce accounts and receipts and a financial report for everyone, which anyone is welcome to check up on. The system operates as a not-for-profit co-operative; as a subscriber, I pay the same amount as everyone else to receive messages. I hold a good full time job and do not need the trivial amounts of money to be made from a system like this. I was involved in setting up the first telephone grapevine in North East Scotland in the mid 1980’s. I have watched the old phone network fail people in many ways and believe this offers a better way of getting information out to birders. I have always recognised that good information flow about rare birds enhances everyone’s birding, including my own. If we go and see the birds it makes us better birders by giving us practice at identifying rare and scarce birds. When a rare or scarce bird is seen and confirmed by a number of people, it facilitates the record assessment process and enhances the birding reputation of the finder. Rarities are one of a number of factors that put a region on the birding map - this improves the number of tourists visiting the region and number of birders choosing to live and find employment in the region; a long-staying King Eider (a.k.a. “Elvis”) on the Ythan Estuary brought tens of thousands of pounds to the North-East economy. What are the advantages of ABZ-Text over other systems? Compared to a phone system:
Compared to pagers:
Compared to other text message services:
Compared to internet-based services:
What are the disadvantages of ABZ-Text over other systems? Compared to a phone system:
Compared to pagers/ other text systems:
Compared to internet-based systems
What do I need to be able to receive messages? To receive messages to your mobile phone, it must be capable of receiving SMS text messages. It doesn’t matter who your mobile phone service provider is, but you might want to give careful consideration to subscribing to this service if you cannot get a mobile phone signal in a place where you spend significant amounts of time – although you will get all the messages when you move to an area with a signal, but some time after everyone else. You’ll probably want a phone which can store a reasonable quantity of messages (most phones manufactured in the last 2 years have a very large capacity for message storage. To receive messages to a pager, you need to have a standard pager with a Vodafone subscription. ZAP pagers don’t work. To receive messages by email, you need an ordinary email account. Will I receive news of every rare or scarce bird seen in NE Scotland? This is pretty unlikely, because there will always be people outside of the loop or who are not particularly interested in letting other people know about the rare birds they see. We’ll do our best though, and so far, it’s proving pretty effective. How many people are subscribed to this service? About 30 people are currently subscribed. Interest in the system will grow as more people have come to appreciate its advantages. Will I receive all news posted onto the ABZ-Rare-Birds Yahoogroup? Again, no promises, but a number of people who have subscribed to ABZ-Rare-Birds are members of the text service and will do their best to post the news out. Will I receive all news that goes out on the pagers? Again, no promises, but some members of the text service subscribe to pager services as well and do their best to post the news out. How quickly will messages be received? Messages sent to pagers will be received almost instantaneously if you are in a region of Vodafone coverage. Messages to mobile phones and emails will be subject to delays experienced by the mobile phone service provider – usually instantaneous, but on rare occasions they get delayed. I am not able to accept responsibility for any delays you might experience in receiving messages. Are there any rules I must abide by? Yes. I want this system to enhance everyone’s birding in a way that is easy to use. However, we have to accept some responsibility for ensuring its success – for example, to keep costs down for users who have to pay to receive messages, to ensure that confidential information isn’t distributed by this network or it goes no further than this network in some cases. I won’t hassle people who occasionally make mistakes, but I will take stronger action if someone is abusing the system. A copy of the rules is attached to this document. Is there any other information I can get about Vodafone’s MDS service? There certainly is. Try some of the following links to their site: I want to go ahead and subscribe, how do I do this? Read the rules and conditions of service. Fill out the application form, fill out all the information on the form and click the Send button. Send me your fee for the first 12 months: £11.00 for Vodafone mobile customers. £22.00 for non Vodafone mobile customers, pager users and email users. Please make cheques payable to A Webb
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