Facebook Is Killing Text Messaging

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Facebook Is Killing Text Messaging

Posted by timothy on Sunday May 13, 2012 @01:13AM from the funeral-will-be-awesome dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We've heard many times and from multiple sources that text messaging is declining. There are multiple reasons for this (BlackBerry Messenger, Apple's iMessage, and even WhatsApp), but the biggest one is Facebook (Messenger). Facebook is slowly but surely killing the text message. As a result, the social networking giant is eating into the traffic carriers receive from text messaging, and thus a huge chunk of their revenues."

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Good by dontbgay · 2012-05-13 01:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

Maybe carriers would reduce their crazy pricing models for SMS messages!

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1. Re:Good by olsmeister · 2012-05-13 01:23 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well, it's hard to compete with free. But (if I were in the carriers' position) I would stress the privacy/advertising/data mining issues, and try to appeal to people who have no facebook account an no interest in getting one. And lower the prices ... I think the gravy train for them is nearing the end for SMS messages. So at least facebook is a positive in that regard. Anyway, wouldn't Twitter be more along the lines of direct competition?
2. Re:Good by aliquis · 2012-05-13 01:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yeah. Because no-one listen to your SMS messages ...
3. Re:Good by jellomizer · 2012-05-13 01:48 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  But that's ok you are being mined other ways. Well you can compete with free, if you couldn't then how did Apple rise from near bankruptcy. When you had Linux growing, during that same time. I would argue we never really had privacy. Back in the pre-internet age if you were to go to the store and buy embarrassing products, the clerk could have been the town gossip, and by the end of the week you are an outcast because of some odd purchase. While now we are collecting more information, the advertisers are smart enough not to abuse the information, because if you make Jane embarrassed because she bought a product or has an issue which a product can help, you risk loosing a customer.
  
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4. Re:Good by EggyToast · 2012-05-13 02:05 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I believe that is the point -- people are choosing to use other forms of messaging and finding that they're as good, if not better, among their contacts compared to SMS. As such, they are saving themselves the unlimited texting fees.
  
  An unlimited texting plan on AT&T is $20/mo, and on Verizon, the $5/mo tier only gets you 250 messages. The $10/mo plan gets you mostly unlimited texting. So, people are deciding "hey, everyone I text is on FB, and I can ping them on their phone the same way. Plus I can ping people who don't even have phones and are sitting at home."
  
  So, it's more flexible, and it's cheaper. People then drop their unlimited data plans (which are add-ons and not part of the contract structure), which eats into the planned revenue for the carriers. What's worse, the carriers have no plan to recoup this fee once it's gone. They'll need to make up the shortfall by increasing data plan costs.
5. Re:Good by 0100010001010011 · 2012-05-13 02:50 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  You mean like when Target told a dad his daughter was pregnant?
  Also, you loose nothing. If something is loose you should tighten it as not to lose it. Although I guess in this case you sort of did lose a loose customer.
6. Re:Good by gstrickler · 2012-05-13 03:10 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  $5/mo for unlimited texting? Not from Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile. It's a $20/mo add-on from VZ, AT&T and Sprint, or a $10/mo higher plan from T-Mobile.
  
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7. Re:Good by wealthychef · 2012-05-13 04:41 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Actually, the article you quote makes jellomizer's point.
  
  But Target didn't stop the creepy target marketing -- it just got sneakier about it.
  "With the pregnancy products, though, we learned that some women react badly," the executive said. "Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We'd put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We'd put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.
  "And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn't been spied on, she'll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don't spook her, it works."
  The author of the article says it's creepy, but actually I think it's clever and discreet.
  
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8. Re:Good by dgatwood · 2012-05-13 10:58 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I keep hearing people say that SMS messages are effectively free for the carriers, but such statements don't present the whole picture, and as a result, are highly misleading.
  Yes, text messages are sent using junk parts of packets that aren't used for anything else. However, there are a limited number of time slots per frequency, and a limited number of frequency slots. Therefore, it is a scarce resource. If text messages were free or nearly so, there is the danger that your text messages would be delayed by hours because of the backlog, making them early useless.
  When a backlog does occur, there are only three ways to fix it: add more bandwidth (which costs money), change phones so that they can deliver text messages using data traffic (which effectively takes bandwidth from other things, eventually resulting in the need to add bandwidth, which costs money), or charge a fee so that fewer people send text messages, thus avoiding the tragedy of the commons.
  So it is no more "nearly free" than biodiesel made from restaurant grease is nearly free; initially it may seem that way, but as soon as demand builds up, suddenly there's not enough to go around, and the cost of increasing the supply makes it largely infeasible to do so.
  
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Nope by blahbooboo · 2012-05-13 01:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

Not for me. Facebook sucks for messaging compared to iMessage or plain old texts.
At best, facebook is an email supplement
1. Re:Nope by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-13 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  At best, facebook is an email supplement
  How can Facebook messaging even be compared with email? Can you exchange messages with people who do not use one company's services? Can you run your own Facebook message server?
  
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2. Re:Nope by GuldKalle · 2012-05-13 01:32 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  yes
  https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=224049364288051
  
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3. Re:Nope by poetmatt · 2012-05-13 01:46 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Exactly. This article is attributing to facebook what is a result of a: general market shift away from ridiculously overpriced messaging, and b: a result of simply better services that are out there, such as anything that does text messages over data, including google voice and that apple messenger thing.
  Facebook's total influence on text messaging is probably neutral entirely, due to enabling people to get notifications via text messaging.
What a choice... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-13 01:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

On the one hand, a cartel that charges ridiculous prices for messaging. On the other, a service which will not allow you to send messages to users of other services.

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1. Re:What a choice... by bemymonkey · 2012-05-13 01:35 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Facebook IM is just the gateway drug... As soon as people realize that text messaging should essentially be free, they're just seconds away from installing another IM client on their phone. Most people won't, because they don't need to communicate with anyone outside their Facebook friend list... But the idea should be planted :-)
Rediculous markup by neokushan · 2012-05-13 01:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

SMS has a ridiculous markup, in the thousands of percent - sorry, telcos, but the gig is up. You've had your free lunch and it's over, how about instead you give us better data options so you can at least make some money out of all these free services?
Face it - SMS and phone calls are a dying business, data is the future so invest in your infrastructure, encourage its use and profit from the fact that nobody's likely to offer free universal data any time soon.

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1. Re:Rediculous markup by contrapunctus · 2012-05-13 01:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  actually it's infinity percent markup since SMS costs telcos nothing at all...
2. Re:Rediculous markup by crafty.munchkin · 2012-05-13 01:45 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Couldn't agree more, the cash cow of SMS messaging is dying. Now if we can just convince the majority of ISPs that excess data downloads shouldn't be its replacement, that'll be fantastic. My boss just received a $8000 excess data usage bill for his home account... *shakes head*
  
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3. Re:Rediculous markup by fa2k · 2012-05-13 02:14 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  actually it's infinity percent markup since SMS costs telcos nothing at all...
  Great, now let's tunnel IP over SMS and get infinite, free data bandwidth
4. Re:Rediculous markup by fragMasterFlash · 2012-05-13 02:14 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Just because SMS piggybacks parts of the cellular network protocol to get from the tower to your device that does not make it free. While I agree it is a cash cow given current pricing in the US you cannot completely ignore the backend and administrative costs of maintaining any large scale, reliable communications protocol. And don't forget the cost storing all those messages for our law enforcement overlords to keep us safe from ourselves.
Don't worry about the mobile carriers by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-05-13 01:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

They're getting paid. Facebook replaces messaging because people are using it through their smart phone. So they're paying for data plans.
They should get worried if people stop buying data plans.
1. Re:Don't worry about the mobile carriers by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-13 01:32 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  With the fact that the data plans are so small for phones (just doing a round of Windows updates and application updates on a laptop will put me over cap if I had a phone plan dating from 2010 or newer.), the carriers are making in the money even with people that have unlimited texting.
  Before I picked up an iPhone, I paid $75 a month. With the iPhone, I easily pay $200/month.
  Texting isn't where you will end up being robbed, it is the data plans and the paltry bandwidth quotas.
2. Re:Don't worry about the mobile carriers by the_enigma_1983 · 2012-05-13 01:35 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  A facebook message consisting of 160 characters would be less than 1kB (amortised). The usual cost of an SMS is between 10c and 25c. 10c per kB equates to $100 per MB.
  In other words, telco profit margins on SMS when compared to FB messages are orders of magnitude smaller. It might be even worse, I've heard that SMS messages are sent in some form of "control" packet hence the 160 char limit, meaning that SMS overheads are (somewhat) essential to running the mobile network.
3. Re:Don't worry about the mobile carriers by Paco103 · 2012-05-13 01:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In the US you do. It was accepted on phone calls when cell phones first came out, because the caller does not pay extra to place the call as they do in some countries (if I understand correctly). This was more acceptable since I have the option to not answer a call. With text messages, however, I don't have the option to not get one. In the US, I don't know of any company that doesn't charge for incoming texts, but some do charge less for incoming texts than outgoing.
What? by sureshot007 · 2012-05-13 01:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

So, if you have a phone plan that includes unlimited text messages, but don't use them as much now, wouldn't that be ADDING to the teleco's revenue?

Further more, how would a data driven app displace a cellular function??? Text messaging uses less power and resources on my phone. I can text all day long but if have to be connected to the internet to use facebook, I get far less life out of my battery. I don't get why people would prefer a data app over a native cell feature...but that's just me.
1. Re:What? by bondsbw · 2012-05-13 01:48 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  SMS messages are routed over control channels, which in most cases means that there is practically zero additional cost for the carrier.
  So, no, the failure to use text messages doesn't change carrier revenue. The failure to extract money makes a lot of difference for carrier revenue... which is what happens if you no longer get a texting plan, or if like me, never had one and stop sending the ~10 messages per month I have been doing.
  
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Cutting traffic? by Dcnjoe60 · 2012-05-13 01:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

Exactly how is facebook cutting traffic for the carriers? If I send a text message via FB versus the sms application in my phone, are not the same amount of bytes being transferred? Actually, the FB transfer probably uses more traffic.
What is true, though, is that SMS is a private service that the carriers gouge the public on in pricing and they haven't found a way to exploit the user who uses FB for their texting. At least not yet.
1. Re:Cutting traffic? by damn_registrars · 2012-05-13 03:49 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Exactly how is facebook cutting traffic for the carriers? If I send a text message via FB versus the sms application in my phone, are not the same amount of bytes being transferred? Actually, the FB transfer probably uses more traffic.
  You got that right. SMS uses virtually no traffic for the carrier, it is well above 99% profit. Facebook isn't hurting their traffic - it is actually increasing their traffic. Rather, it is hurting their bottom line because they can't get away with marking up data rates to the degree they can mark up text rates. This "story" is basically just the carriers whining that their profit margins are decreasing because they got too comfortable with the obscene returns they were getting from text messages.
  
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No huge chunks in Europe by Mirvnillith · 2012-05-13 01:24 · Score: 4, Informative

In Sweden text messages tend to be free (but only the first 5000 each month) with plans at about $21 a month (this example with 3GB data as well). I know the US is different (recipient paying for text message and such), but there are operators surviving without this huge chunk of revenue ...
1. Re:No huge chunks in Europe by I_am_Jack · 2012-05-13 01:50 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Then you weren't a teenage girl with a cell phone. My daughter averages 5200 a month .
Jack up the price of a data plan by tepples · 2012-05-13 01:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

Well, it's hard to compete with free.
Of course you can. You can jack up the minimum price for a smartphone data plan so that it's more expensive than unlimited texting, forcing cost-conscious customers onto dumbphones.
Moving texts between cell sites by tepples · 2012-05-13 02:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

SMS costs telcos nothing at all
...to transmit, as text messages are stored in an otherwise unused field of the GSM keep-alive packet. But maintaining the software and backhaul network for moving these 160-byte packets around from one cell site to the next does cost greater than zero.
1. Re:Moving texts between cell sites by allo · 2012-05-13 02:07 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  let epsilon be greater than zero
Wired has a lot more spectrum by tepples · 2012-05-13 02:08 · Score: 3, Informative

Your DSL, cable, or fiber ISP has a lot more spectrum available to it than any cellular carrier because copper and fiber act as waveguides. Therefore, such a wired ISP can provide far more last-mile throughput.
and nothing of value... by roc97007 · 2012-05-13 02:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Seriously, the profits the carriers were getting from text messaging were artificial anyway. Surely they realized that. Text messaging uses otherwise unused bandwidth at the cell site and is *way* overpriced for the value received. It was a glitch in the wireless revenue stream that any savvy provider would realize will go away at some point.
Facebook on a wireless device does use up data plan, which can also be expensive, but is orders of magnitude cheaper than texting. It's evolution in action.
I wait with bated breath for the carriers to lobby for protectionist legislation. Perhaps a surcharge on data plans to cover the lost revenue from people abandoning texting.

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