The death of SMS has been greatly exaggerated

2. Shafeer posted on 11 Jun 2011, 14:53 3 0

SMS will NOT die. I tell you this now. Well it won't in atleast 5 years.

3. Gsmalltheway posted on 11 Jun 2011, 15:55 4 3

SMS will never go away. The good thing about SMS is it doesnt matter what phone you have or what app you dont have, Whatever phone you have you can message whatever phone the other person has. If a blackberry ownwer wants to message an iphone it doesnt matter the the iphone doesnt have bb messanger and vice versa.

4. TheBrizz posted on 11 Jun 2011, 16:09 3 1

Gsmalltheway, thanks for simply repeating what the article said :)

5. VZW4LIFE posted on 11 Jun 2011, 16:22 0 0

I agree...Wireless carriers should revise how they charge for SMS service. I think a good idea might be to make SMS a free feature for smart phone customers or customers who opt to subscribe to a data plan on their cell phones. For the customers who choose not to add a data plan (or if their phone doesn't support it,) carriers can continue to sell SMS packages as a stand alone feature.

6. snowgator posted on 11 Jun 2011, 16:26 0 0

First of all - very good article.

Secondly, I was complaining about the price of SMS about two months ago. I felt the same way this article feels- it is simply a cash cow for the companies. Considering how much pricing for plans have increased, It is very much a huge cow. I won't go as far as to think it should be free. Even at the small portion of data it uses, it is still a high enough volume from all devices on their networks that I am fine with a fee. But there is NO WAY it is relative to the amount they are hitting us for. Slice the prices by 2/3rds, and I am no longer offended.

7. Joaoakwoa (unregistered) posted on 11 Jun 2011, 16:55 1 0

"including that 3 year old LG feature phone that your grandparents use"

Wow, that's what I call tech-addicted grandparents! My grandmother uses a Nokia from 1999 and my mother uses a Sony Ericsson T610i from 2003 :)

9. joey18 posted on 11 Jun 2011, 18:02 0 0

if they cut sms will be g reat the extra money you will pay for the data ime is fucture sms

11. ibap posted on 11 Jun 2011, 18:48 0 0

The carriers will, one way or another, find a way to maintain their revenue stream.

The value of SMS is not just that it is on essentially all phones, it is that if you know the phone number, you can send to it. You aren't using yet another address for that person. So what though, if you had to? You have email addresses for a ton of folks. If you had an app that sent to their 'text' address, what would the big deal be? Oh wait - that is what IM was/is.

What is the big honkin' deal? Oh, it's because Apple announced it, so it must be hot stuff. Get a grip.

12. Gawain posted on 11 Jun 2011, 20:29 0 0

Nice column. Some of your comparisons however seem to fall short though. For example, stating that iMessage/BBM at best could make SMS free, thus everyone would switch to SMS, is reaching. iMessage, and especially BBM, have performance factors that SMS/MMS don't have (even with an app or service like GroupMe).

That aside, I agree completely, SMS is not in danger of dying anytime soon. It's reasonably fast, can reach recipients in spotty coverage and no need for data since SMS rides on a sub-channel of the voice side.

Five or six years down the road may tell a different story. Suppose VZW achieves 100% LTE coverage and begins implementing VoLTE, there will be no "need" for traditional voice channels. That is where SMS in some markets may wither. Even then though, there will be some type of SMS service so that messages to non-LTE/4G markets can still be accomplished.

13. Eingild posted on 11 Jun 2011, 22:33 0 0

Everything is exaggerated when new technology comes out. People said that Radio will die when TV came out. They also said that landline phones will die when cellular phones came out; Netbooks will die when tablets came out; and now this? Too much exaggeration is bad for your health people. Don't over think things. Of course new technology will chip away market share from old ones, but it doesn't mean that these new ones will totally replace old school stuffs.