Messaging Apps, VoIP Already Eating Into Carrier Revenue

Posted by Soulskill on Friday November 18, 2011 @08:10AM from the you're-gonna-get-net-neutralized dept.

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."

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Re:The funny part by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-18 08:13 · Score: 5, Informative

SMS is technically free. The only cost is counting/bill.
Re:Good for several reasons by alexandre_ganso · 2011-11-18 08:36 · Score: 5, Informative

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.