Slashdot Mirror
The Cultures of Texting In Europe and America
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The cultures of text messaging are very different in Europe and North America, according to an internet sociologist named Danah Boyd. Americans and Canadians have historically paid to receive text messages, but 'all-you-can-eat' data plans are beginning to change that. All-you-can-eat plans are still relatively rare in Europe. When a European youth runs out of texts and can't afford to top up, they simply don't text. But they can still receive texts without cost so they aren't actually kept out of the loop. What you see in Europe is a muffled fluidity of communication, comfortable but not excessive. "
A SMS message contains about a hundred bytes of non-time-critical data, which is a pittance compared to a tenth of a second of audio (which is time-critical, at least unless you ask T-Mobile).
SMS's put virtually no load at all on the network infrastructure. Surely some carrier could attract business with free unlimited messages, and it wouldn't cost them a thing.
I have a friend in prague. Instead of texting from my phone, I just go to the VODAFONE web site, where I can send, pretty much e-mail long text messages for no charge at all. This is cool... virtually.. you don't have to bother about credit limits, if you run out, you can go online and send SMS in an emergency. I also find it ridiculous to charge all the incoming stuff. Come on... its like early days in Stamp Postage, where receiver should pay the stamp charges... which discouraged people and made it a key factor for general public to refrain using postal system.
Unfortunately, simply choosing not to pick up won't necessarily make a difference. I had the most ridiculous bill when I was down in the States visiting despite my not picking up any calls that came in. The reason was, the cell company billed you for the roaming call simply because they had to use other people's lines to make the phone ring - regardless of whether you picked it up or not. Good luck finding that one in the FAQ.
Thankfully, I'm finally rid of this horrible company and I'm on a nice tiny plan where I never pay more than $15 a month for exactly the same service I was paying $60-$150 a month for before.
~ Leilah
I didn't know about how people are charged in America, so this was interesting to me. The sheer number of text messages sent by typical teenagers was also a point of interest.
The font size is normal. If you consider that text long, how did you manage to get through school, let a alone a typical Slashdot comments page? As for the lack of pictures: this is not kindergarten. Nobody needs those symbolic images used in typical online news articles that never add anything to the story (a candidate in this case: a picture of someone using a cellphone).
Unlimited texting plans in America seem to be around $20/mo and individual messages are about 15 cents (so one message plus the recipient replying to you will cost each of you 30 cents for a total of 60 cents). How fucking much do you have to be texting in a month to make this worthwhile? If you're a kid, go home and get on the computer and use IM if you absolutely need to chat. Or if you have a cell phone, PICK UP THE DAMN THING AND DIAL.
I know people who run through hundreds or thousands of messages every month. What in the hell do you need to say so badly that you can't call someone or IM them from a computer? I mean, YOU HAVE A CELL IN YOUR HAND. Why would you opt to text instead? And don't tell me "because most situations require that you be discreet in your communication". Really? Where in the hell are you wasting the majority of your waking hours that you can or need to send thousands of text messages?!
I can see some situations where it might be potentially useful to send a couple text messages here and there (but sure as fuck not hundreds or thousands) -- but not for the absurd prices carriers charge.
Oh, believe it :-) When MMS (multimedia messages) first hit the UK, everyone charged a fixed rate per month for the ability to send them - except for Orange. When quizzed on why they were 'ripping off' their customers, Orange responded that the reason they were the only ones charging per message was simple - they were the only company with a billing system that could charge per MMS message. All the other telco's billing systems needed upgrading, and they would charge based on the number of messages sent if they possibly could.
Also, I was once told a story about a room in a telco with a bunch of (6?) DOS based PCs. When asked why these PCs were there, my contact was told they ran the telco's SMS system for the whole of the UK. They were terrified of changing it. And this wasn't as long ago as you'd like to think :-)