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Comment by radicaldreamer | Hacker News Reader

It's quite a stretch to say that Facebook's purchase of Beluga will lead to a "bust up" of SMS.

SMS will be around for a long time because it's compatible with every cell phone, regardless of OS or carrier and it's compatible internationally, even in countries where Facebook is blocked.

This sounds like the start of a cycle of "death of email" style stories for SMS.

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It's not going to kill SMS, it's going to drive prices down by competing in an overlapping market.

It's already begun. With Virgin Mobile I pay $25/month for unlimited 3G data and unlimited SMS.

In the UK (I can't speak to other regions) unlimited SMS plans became common because the networks realised it was a great way to hook young people - and it's been available for several years.

Unlimited SMS plans are common in the US, but the 'cartel' part comes from the pricing structure:

  $10/month for unlimited
  $0.35/text sent (without an unlimited plan)
  $0.25/text received (without an unlimited plan)

The pricing structure is there to drive you to the unlimited model by price gouging you if you remain ala carte. They even make it difficult for you to turn off the ability to received text messages. This way when you rack up the charges from receiving text messages, you are up-sold to the unlimited plan rather than given the option to disable receiving of text messages. [This is also rather annoying when someone spams you with a text message advert... b/c now you've just PAID to get an advertisement that you didn't want.]

Paying to receive is the part of the US system that I don't understand, not just when it comes to SMS.

In the UK/Europe (and afaik most other non-US regions?) receiving never costs - even if I receive a call when in another country, doesn't cost me anything.

That's not true in Sweden. Most plans in Sweden charge when you receive a call in another country, but never for an SMS.

Same in denmark, it costs to recieve a call in anothe rcountry, but not sms messages. The reason is that you can decline to recieve a call, but you cant decline a sms.

Do you check your bill? It does cost to receive calls in other countries (cheaper than dialling out, so always get people to call you if you can)

Guess from the other replies I was wrong to over-generalise about Europe, but it certainly doesn't cost me to receive calls when abroad (I'm on Vodafone UK), and I know the same is true at least for O2 and Orange.

I'm on O2 and they definitely do charge.

Take a look at http://www.vodafone.co.uk/personal/price-plans/managing-my-c... and you will see Vodafone do charge as well. Perhaps you have Vodafone passport which makes it cheaper?

Sorry to be a pedant, but I wouldn't want you to end up with a big bill you didn't know about!

fyi: even receiving voice mail once a SIM is registered in a foreign network generally incurs a cost with EU carriers and is charged like a passive call in roaming, even when the phone is subsequently turned off. the only way to reset this is for your SIM to register again with your home network.

on a minor note, receiving return receipts is typically charged like an outbound SMS.

Its not going to kill the SMS. However, its going to impact operators revenue. SMS has been the cash cow to operators for a longtime now. The cost for sending/receiving SMS is almost zero except for the network maintenance cost. So this will definitely impact operators revenue. Mobile VoIP didn't kill circuit switch calls, but did dent operators voice revenue especially international calls.

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