A
value-added service (
VAS) is a popular
telecommunications industry term for non-
core services, or in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business. In the telecommunication industry, on a conceptual level, value-added services
add value to the standard service offering, the subscriber to use their phone more and allowing the operator to drive up their
ARPU. For mobile phones, technologies like
SMS,
MMS and
data access were historically usually considered value-added services, but in recent years SMS, MMS and data access have more and more become core services, and VAS therefore has begun to exclude those services.