Prospects of Implementing Short Message Service (SMS) Based E-government Model in Bangladesh

Short message service (SMS) has become one of the most preferred communication media among local authorities in many countries to deliver e-government services. In this study we have used currently available SMS based e-government services as a model and described requirements to implement the services depicted in the model for Bangladesh. Due to almost forty times mobile phone users over Internet users and adequate established infrastructures it is easier to guarantee accessibility to most of the e-government services to a large number of people by SMS at a cheap rate rather than using Internet. This study also represents a comparative study to show how SMS based e-government can fulfill most of the services that Internet based e-government offers. Through SMS based e-government services people can be notified immediately about healthcare, natural disasters, tax services, education information and can also participate in voting, auctions and many other activities. This study concludes by listing opportunities and challenges regarding SMS based e-government implementation in Bangladesh.