One of the largest networks in the UK, known as Janet, has signed up for a service that will allow institutions to send SMS messages via a single interface

The Joint Academic Network has signed a deal for a mobile-phone text service to connect the 18 million users of its education network.

The service — called "Janet txt" — will allow the UK's educational and research institutions to send individual or group SMS messages to mobiles, landlines, email and pagers through one interface. PageOne won the three-year contract to supply the Joint Academic Network (Janet) with its SMS service.

The service is available to any educational body that receives Janet's other services, with individual contracts being established between PageOne and individual user organisations.

Educational organisations can regulate and customise the text service so the messages sent out are clearly associated with the institution distributing them.

Janet txt is expected to go live this summer, with the organisations signing up for the service getting lower per-message prices due to bulk-buying economies of scale.

The UK Education and Research Networking Association (UKerna) manages the Janet network, which it claims is the third-largest network in the UK, with more than 18 million users across 1,000 institutions.

UKerna signed a deal last year for automated back-up, archiving, hosting and web-file services.

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