In a message on its front page in the typical SMS-style adopted by the Web site, operator Airborn Wired and Wireless says the advertising model it adopted failed.

“As costs increased, we introduced advertising, but it was only a partial answer. Now another set of charges from third-party networks has hit our service.”

Mobile operators across the world have been known to block SMSs to their networks originating from MTNSMS, arguing that their subscribers use such services, denying them the revenue from such SMSs. A move to demand SMS interconnect fees similar to those paid on voice calls, where the originating network pays the receiving operator a fee to complete the call, has gained speed in recent months.

According to the Web site message, the free service is to end tomorrow, but it promises that the site will be back.

“Watch this space as we evolve into an even more exciting SMS,” it reads.

Airborn claims the site has seven million users from 140 countries, and says more than one billion messages have been sent through the site.

The site first came to public attention in SA late in 1999, when MTN revealed it as part of a “stealth Internet strategy” it had been developing. At the time, it was already the largest Web site hosted on the continent, having seen a huge take-up from users in Europe. In the past two years the site has continued to show usage and page impression figures larger than other local sites.

Airborn, a company formed within MTN to come up with innovative money-generating services, constantly maintained that MTNSMS was simply a proof-of-concept project and not intended to make money.

Early last year Airborn announced a licensing deal on the technology behind the site with giant America Online (AOL). AOL was interested in using two-way SMS, with a return-path to the Web site, in its ICQ instant messaging software.

Airborn also concluded what it described as a multimillion-dollar alliance with Unisys around its other major development – a messaging system named RIVR that generates SMS-data messages when triggered by a normal voice call.

Airborn representatives could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.

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