I've never been a big user of SMS messaging on my cell phone, but I know that the kids are all over it these days--when they're not all over my lawn, that is. :-)
Seriously, though, paying per-message costs always seemed rather silly. So it was with great amusement that I read The True Cost of SMS Messages and discovered that they're about 61 million times more expensive than TCP/IP from your typical Cable Modem service.
The article is rather fun. You can read a whole line of reasoning that compares SMS costs with the postal service and home broadband. The conclusion cracked me up.
COSTS OF TRANSFERING 2,560 MP3s:
TCP/IP: $1
TCP/SMS: $61,356,851.20
TCP/USPS: $307,072.00 (Bits written out on paper)
So getting a SMS delivered is bit for bit 200x more expensive than getting a message hand delivered to your doorstep anywhere in the United States.
What exactly justifies making SMS messages sixty one million times more expensive than ISP data and 200x more expensive than TCP/USPS? How come technology, communication, and infrastructure is getting cheaper while the costs of SMS messages are increasing exponentially? My theory: SMS messages are transfered over air made of solid gold.
Heh.
In other words, save your pennies if you can't buy SMS in bulk.
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