Mobile carriers face a future without text messaging as data apps take over

Forums › ICT Policies and Regulation › Mobile carriers face a future without text messaging as data apps take over

ajw

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#98646 3-Mar-2012 10:14

Mobile World Congress sees operators try to fight back with promise of cross-platform app as growing number of companies supplant SMS with free data messaging.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/01/sms-pinger-whatsapp-messaging-mwc

sbiddle

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#589734 3-Mar-2012 10:24

Without reading yet another link I assume you're simply meaning RCSe/RCS - a total joke that's 5 years late and of zero value. In 6 months it'll be dead.

SaltyNZ

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#589739 3-Mar-2012 10:28

sbiddle: Without reading yet another link I assume you're simply meaning RCSe/RCS - a total joke that's 5 years late and of zero value. In 6 months it'll be dead.

Nah, they mean the likes of Viber etc. But yes, you're right - the mainstream media presenting as news something you & I have been aware of for several years now.

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alasta

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#589747 3-Mar-2012 10:43

Personally I think that Facebook messaging and, to a lesser extent, iMessage will take over. I have all but given up on SMS because of poor inter-carrier reliability. Also let's not forget that calling is a lot less expensive than it used to be which reduces the appeal of SMS.

kyhwana2

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#589749 3-Mar-2012 10:46

alasta: Personally I think that Facebook messaging and, to a lesser extent, iMessage will take over.

iMessage wont, since that's iphone only!

freitasm

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#589762 3-Mar-2012 11:05

alasta: Personally I think that Facebook messaging and, to a lesser extent, iMessage will take over. I have all but given up on SMS because of poor inter-carrier reliability. Also let's not forget that calling is a lot less expensive than it used to be which reduces the appeal of SMS.

Voice calling is a lot more reliable than SMS too, for time sensitive messages.

I said on #geekzone IRC that my view of future was less email and more Facebook Messaging, and someone was so full of rage with this comment I had to end up kicking him out of the channel because of the name calling - seriously, name calling because he disagreed with my view that Facebook Messaging could replace email for some users.

Yes, I believe Facebook Mail will replace email and to a certain point SMS. This is mainly because of the much smaller level of spam in that medium, since you can control who can and cannot contact you.

ajw

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#589765 3-Mar-2012 11:13

sbiddle: Without reading yet another link I assume you're simply meaning RCSe/RCS - a total joke that's 5 years late and of zero value. In 6 months it'll be dead.

I am not a technician, I see a article that I think Geekzoners will be interested in and provoke discussion.
That's what Geekzone is all about isn't it.

johnr

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#589778 3-Mar-2012 11:27

SMS use is still climbing only 13 - 14 months ago we had to upgrade the SMS routers hardware / software,

John

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SaltyNZ

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#589788 3-Mar-2012 11:50

My personal view -- and this is not necessarily the view (or not the view) of 2degrees is that mobile carriers should not, and really don't need to, fight the OTT players.

People don't want a 2degrees phone. They don't want a Vodafone phone, and they don't want an XT phone. They want an iPhone, or an Android. They don't want a hypothetical '2degreesmail'. They want GMail, they want Hotmail.

Data apps are the way of the future, and, in fact, they're better for carriers anyway. Once your network has enhanced fast dormancy and a couple of other signaling-reduction enhancements, data apps cost you less, and use less network resources, than SMS.

I don't see circuit-switched voice calling going away any time soon; there will always be people you want to call who don't have it, and the internet is never going to be the kind of medium you can rely on for a high-quality voice connection. But I do believe it will be eaten into by VoIP.

I think Facebook messaging will overtake other forms of communication for some people. Not me; I'm not 14, and I don't feel the need to tell everyone on Earth what I had for lunch.

John's right that SMS usage is still increasing. And it will for some time. But the RATE of increase is slowing, and there will come a point in the not too distant future when it begins to decrease. But before that can happen, the myriad SMS alternatives need to agree on a common infrastructure that allows them to interconnect. And then, basically, you've got SMS all over again, just run (partly) by a different set of people.

The 'open source solutions will be the end of the ebil telcos!' people will be disappointed to learn that even the power of open source software cannot overcome the physical expense of laying cables and launching satellites, and neither will mesh networks ever offer the bandwidth and latency that centralised systems can provide. In other words, the telcos, love 'em or hate 'em, aren't going away.

I believe they will need to accept that their long term role is 'dumb pipe'. But they aren't going to disappear.

It's also important to note that telcos aren't fully staffed by idiots. Most of us are geeks too. We are *not* blind to what's happening in the wider tech industry. It's true that often telcos are guilty of sticking their fingers in their ears and trying to protect their dying business model. But that will change. It will have to.

Personally I think you'll find that the 'internet' guys will be able to learn a lot from the 'telco' guys, who have more than a century of experience in providing quality of service. And the 'telco' guys will learn - are learning - from the 'internet' guys by providing new things, more quickly.

The public will learn that in order to get new things more quickly, they will need to accept that sometimes those things won't always work 100% reliably. That's the price you pay to get them quickly. You can kill 80% of the bugs in 20% of the time, but the other 20% take another 80% of the time. This is universally true.

It used to be that telcos chased those 20% down before launching anything. We don't do that any more. And I think, on balance, everyone is better off for it.

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freitasm

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#589789 3-Mar-2012 11:54

SaltyNZ: I think Facebook messaging will overtake other forms of communication for some people. Not me; I'm not 14, and I don't feel the need to tell everyone on Earth what I had for lunch.

I wasn't talking about Facebook posts in your wall, but using your Facebook email address (everyone has one now) and your Facebook private messaging instead of other email alternatives (even Hotmail, GMail, etc).

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#589792 3-Mar-2012 11:59

freitasm:
SaltyNZ: I think Facebook messaging will overtake other forms of communication for some people. Not me; I'm not 14, and I don't feel the need to tell everyone on Earth what I had for lunch.

I wasn't talking about Facebook posts in your wall, but using your Facebook email address (everyone has one now) and your Facebook private messaging instead of other email alternatives (even Hotmail, GMail, etc).

Oh yes, I know; I think that the Facebook email is only going to take over for some people. I'm too old for a salty@facebook.com, and I cannot imagine anyone using one for work. But those pesky kids will love it!

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freitasm

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#589793 3-Mar-2012 12:00

Those pesky kids will take over yourself in about fifteen to twenty years...

SaltyNZ

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#589794 3-Mar-2012 12:03

Never! The first thing I plan to do with the enormous piles of filthy lucre I intend to rake in is develop immortality treatments, and then hoard them for myself and my small cadre of dedicated sycophants.

You'll see.

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Technofreak

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#590300 4-Mar-2012 21:45

What's Facebook?

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Shoes2468

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#590310 4-Mar-2012 22:28

I think this is the way it's going, I use wp7 and the message integration is amazing, Facebook message, text message or msn, you can't tell the difference its seamless

nakedmolerat

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#590315 4-Mar-2012 22:44

in the future, national sms will be FREE and unlimited (for those on plan)