TeleCommunications Systems (TCS) announced bagging a patent for its prepaid short messaging service which promises to enable the operators to offer messaging and information services to their respective prepaid subscribers using a method that prevents fraud and revenue loss.

TCS says that its Short Message Service Center (SMSC) solution determines if a subscriber has sufficient funds in their account to receive a short message and either delivers the message or prevents delivery of the message based on the account balance. Further to this the recipient''s account is debited in real time prior to the message being sent using a flexible rating structure that supports flat rate, message length, or different rates for different message types.