Slashdot Mirror
World's First SMS Text Messaging May Fade Soon
Infractor writes: "UK Mobile provider Orange has moved to pull the plug on the world's first ever text message community -- Locust Cellular
Linux hacker Jon Anderson built the service, similar to wireless email and IRC chat back in 1996. A student Linux project, accidently became the first service to offer interactive text message facilities on this UK network. After Locust's forced closure was announced to its members, a huge campaign has been organised by the subscribers to draw attention to the incredible value which has been created by this unique SMS community." (There's more below.)
"Hundreds of personal letters and testimonials have already been posted on the community action site which is at SaveLocust.org -- This site also has an expose on what is described as 'Orange's Hypocrisy' over claims that it is launching a competitive service to Locust. An article has already appeared on TheRegister.co.uk
For the UK, this is a unique social phenomena, driven by the power and intimacy of text messaging. Please review the evidence for yourself. This community shows what technology can really do in the wireless world. Locust still runs on good ole Linux 2.0.33 -- if it aint broke ... :)"
Locust is a profit-making company. It's in their interests to maintain the status quo, because it provides them with a model for making money.
Locust's Terms and Conditions say include the statement that Locust reserves the right to change price plans or service features at any time if required, yet when Orange exercise the same right, they start kicking and screaming.
There are other mobile phone network operators in the UK - Vodafone, Cellnet, One2One. Why doesn't Locust talk to one of them with a view to switching providers?
I'm sorry, but I don't really see what the big deal is here. Seems to be another case of people wanting something without having to pay for it, both in terms of the disgruntled Locust users, and the people who profit from it.
What will happen when GPRS becomes more common? Many of the services that Locust offer via SMS seem much more naturally suited to GPRS. It may be that Locust will run out of users in the long-run anyway as these services become more common place as part of a GPRS subscription.
.... reminds me of a regional finance company that specialises in infrastructure funding (things like ring-roads, traffic bypasses, fibre, etc). They built a high-speed traffic bypass asnd started charging tolls. However, they found out residents were still using local roads so they did a deal with the state authority repsonsible for public roads to seal them off.
:-).
The point is that they did the conomic analysis and showed that there was a net savings in petrol consumption and driver's time. But in order for them to pay for building the new infrastructure, they had to convince motorists that there was no longer a free-ride. The problem is that motorists only saw the daily toll charges and not the weekly savings in petrol/time. Not to mention that very little advance warning was given to changing the road access. You can probably guess the PR fallout resulting from this
Sooner or later a similar scenario will happen with communications networks as they reach the limits of scaiability and in order to transition to a more efficient/lower cost/reduced maintenance system, they need to convince people of the benefits of switching This usually requires changing their usage patterns. Unfortunately aggressive telco upstarts don't always have the diplomatic skills to address customer's expectations. Pricing is a particularly sensitive point as there may be incredible customer acquisition costs or hidden cross-subsidies that distort the cost structure.
There has probably been some over-investments in network infrastructure that the current recession is revealing. As Warrne Buffett says, it's only when the tide goes out that you see who's swimming naked. Companies that pass the buck (literally) for their corporate mistakes are going to have a hard time keeping onto their customer base and will have to either swallow the losses (and shock horror forfeit the CEO bonuses/options) or else try and merge to gain monopoly pricing power and justify their executive packages. While some people may decry the double-sided nature of telcos and Wall Street, hopefully the survivors will be more sensitive to their users's needs.
LL
Locust is and always was used by a minority of users. 600 users out of Orange's 10,000,000.
It sprang up out of Orange's original free SMS service. Back in the days when SMS was hardly ever used and it was impossible to SMS across competing phone networks Orange offered, for £2.50 per month, SMS sending and receiving with no charges per message - and they didn't charge the monthly fee either.
This was on the basis that Orange hadn't perfected the system and that later on they would start to charge for the service - something that was told to everyone who signed up. Because of this Locust was able to start using very basic technology (A unix box and a phone with a serial cable) and reasonable low overheads.
When Orange started charging for Text messages they offered Text1500, a bulk text message service for £60 per month which offered unlimited messages.
At this rate, with Locust sending out 300,000 messages per month it was costing them about £0.0002 per message for the over the air portion. This compares very favourable to the £0.02 that other SMS sending services charge.
Companies today, more so with the economy slowing, are trying to make more money out of all of their subscribers and this is just one way that Orange have found to try and do that.
Also of note is that the same people as run Locust offer commercial SMS services run "properly" (Linked to mobile networks rather than using a mobile phone on a PC).
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Why? The WAP portal is where the Euro providers really want their subscribers to go for information, news, etc. GPRS will give WAP some semblance of usability, after the initial flop, and many Euro providers, including the one I work for, have invested millions in their portal offerings. The old style SMS messaging services like this one are OK, as long as you agree to pay for the messages they send you, but anything that detracts from the portal is definitely not on the A-list.
Bottom line, the providers gotta pay down the G3 licenses, and SMS (eventually packetized SMS) is probably the best way to "migrate" the population slowly into G3 without losing the SMS-crazed kids who pay the bills.