Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Yes. Except not everybody (not talking about retirees and toddlers) are on-line on IMs on their phones + that requires additional software, setup (if it's possible at all), not to mention the requirements for Skype and alike. IM are still far from being as ubiquitous as SMS's, low cost or not.

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Ah, most people I communicate with are at work during the work week, and they all have IM at their fingertips. On weekends, I can just as well call and talk rather than type cryptic messages on a crummy keyboard.

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

That's the showstopper right there. I might want to use IM more than anything, but as long as the "people I communicate with" is not limited to my geek buddies with smartphones or spread through half a dozen different IM protocols, I won't be able to do that - actually, that's one of the reasons I need a NIT for.

Also, not sure if it's an European thing, but SMS reception is free (in fact, I don't know about SMS-less plans). As for sending, the #@%#$ providers here reintroduced per minute billing, so for short reminders/confirmations it's actually cheaper/less bothersome to use SMS than do a voice call (60$ ? Even on the worst plan here that's several thousand messages !).

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Yes, but can't you ... like... you know... call and talk to them? After all, if they are not geeks, what is the chance they rely on SMS for communications rather than on old fashioned voice calls?

Funny, I do not even know how much MTS charges for SMS messages :). I do know how much they charge per megabyte of IP traffic though.

Anyways, a look at their web site shows r4.25/MB of traffic and r1.95 for each outgoing SMS message (incoming messages are free). In other words, each SMS is equivalent to 512kB of traffic. Imagine how many messages you will have to send over IM to reach 512kB :)

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

I used to have free incoming text, but it changed to $0.10/message in or out last summer. The free incoming suited me well, as I don't send text messages, but I do receive the occasional alert message from work.

While I don't follow U.S. cellular plans closely, I suspect my free incoming was unusual. When I started having to pay for incoming text messages, I commented about it at work, and my co-workers were shocked I hadn't been paying previously.

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Wow, guess I got it easier here then.

In Brazil it is illegal to charge for incoming messages you didn't ask for officially (like those games and stuff). Brazilian consumer law states that one event cannot generate two different charges (i. e. you cannot charge twice for the same message), and honestly, paying to receive messages is just absurd. It's like paying to send a package through fedex and fedex charging the person who gets it as well.

They don't do it there do they?

Just out of curiosity, sjgadsby, where do you live?

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Again, I suspect this falls under 'European thing' but nearly everybody I know texts to an extent. This includes my (retiree!) parents and first grader neighbour kids (toddler++) who I suspect text better than they write. It's not a replacement for talk (except in environments you can't talk). Think about it as more of a replacement for short emails rather than IM.

I believe you have misread something. The 4-5 RSD is the cost for 100KB (in US terms, a little over ~$1.3 for 1MB !). To add insult to injury, MTS's gprs/3g connections are notoriusly unreliable/slow, basically good for (small) emails but not much else. WIth most plans you get ~hundreds messages for free (or discount) before you start paying for SMSs at the rate you specified.

It's a vicious circle though - we have a very little % of smartphones (price sensitive market), so GPRS is not widely used (and 3G even less) so the providers have little incentive to upgrade data services which lowers demand for smartphones further, circle complete.

EDIT: Disclaimer: I'm not a MTS customer (but other local GSM providers do not differ significantly neither in price nor quality).

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Ever seen Witness?

Seriously, I live in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA. There's a local joke that a traffic jam here is six cars waiting to pass an Amish buggy.

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

Jeez, yeah I've seen it lol =))

Wow, that's just bad man.

It seems like mobile internet prices in the US are just as bad as in Brazil, even though regular adsl prices are much cheaper there =(

Re: Cell Phone Execs Will Face Questions On Text Messaging Price Hikes
 

It does sound like some kind of insanity to me, really. It is easier to call, after all.

I have no idea what RSD is, but 4.25 Russian roubles are equivalent to US$ 0.14 and this is the price per megabyte, not per 100kB. Also, MTS' GPRS is quite reliable, albeit sluggish. I use SSH via GPRS and it worked well enough all the way to Byelorussian border.

Way different here, with many smartphones and even more "feature phones". By the way, any decent JavaME phone will run Jimm (MIDP IM client) with no difficulty. It does not have to be a smartphone.

I do not think it is the same MTS :)