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Messaging Apps, VoIP Already Eating Into Carrier Revenue
An anonymous reader writes "A new breed of messaging services and mobile Voice over IP clients like Skype are already eating into carrier revenues according to a new study. '... one-third of carriers are already seeing voice traffic and SMS revenue decline as a result of the increased popularity of third-party solutions. ... For years, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Messenger service has been one of the top features consumers and enterprise users loved about BlackBerry devices. It took much longer than some expected, but other vendors and third-party developers have finally come out in full force with competing services that provide SMS-like messaging over data networks at little or no cost to the user."
SMS is technically free. The only cost is counting/bill.
I thought the whole point was that SMS uses the remainder of the defined packet size that's otherwise filled with null characters because of the nature of the packet sizes that were chosen when this kind of radio communication was implemented... In short, SMS costs nothing when the data is already being transmitted OTA anyway...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There IS NO channel load for SMS. Every time you phone says "hello, I'm here", it receives an equivalent of an ACK with SMS WITHIN THE SAME PACKET.
So you can receive as many sms as times as your network knows in which antenna you are, without using a single extra byte from them, because that would be zero-filled otherwise.
If there is such a thing as an immense scam right now, it is SMS.
So shortly after all of the major carriers dropped the even slightly reasonable SMS plans, people started using the hacky but free alternatives? What a shocker. This seems like a classic example of what happens when you price yourself right out of the market.
If you want to see Price Discrimination at work, check out the prices on Mobile Virtual Network Operators (companies that buy access to Verizon, ATT, Sprint, etc. in bulk and resell it via subscription or prepaid contracts.) MVNO carriers offer basically the exact same coverage footprint, you can use the exact same set of handsets (but without a contract, the prices are obviously much different) and yet a MVNO will charge you at least *half*, if not less, for the exact same number of minutes, text messages, and data. Why more people don't use them instead of continuing to be extorted by the big carriers is beyond explanation. If gas cost half as much but you had to pump it yourself (oh, wait) how many people would ever go to full-serve filling stations?
I remembered this also and had to go find it; http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/05/12/1419204/sms-4x-more-expensive-than-data-from-hubble
But don't they have to do all of this to be able to make calls anyway? The only difference being that SMS could be sent out more frequently than calls, thus causing slightly more handing off to other carriers.
Also, I've never heard of an SMS only plan. I think the argument here is that since all of this connectivity must be maintained for the Voice network, why are we paying so much for the SMS, which essentially costs a very small amount of cost on the provider's end when looking at the fact that all of their infrastructure and interconnectivity is needed for the voice portion of the service? That's what GP means by "technically free".