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SMS is still very widely used by parties who don't know each other. In theory, anybody with a phone number can receive an SMS (though not always in reality, bec
by veidr 9y ago
SMS is still very widely used by parties who don't know each other. In theory, anybody with a phone number can receive an SMS (though not always in reality, because SMS is a bag of suck). So your pharmacy can SMS you when your prescription is ready, your mechanic can SMS you when your car is fixed, etc.
I don't personally know anybody who still uses SMS to communicate directly with friends or frequent real-world contacts. But I also don't know anybody who still watches real-time broadcast TV with ads. I assume there are still a lot of both out there in the world, however.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> In theory, anybody with a phone number can receive an SMS Basic landlines are still a thing, and cannot, even in theory, recieve SMS.
- mrighele 9y agoA remember seeing a national landline operator accepting SMS sent to its numbers, and reading them to the user after converting them to speech. The result was not exactly exciting, but the idea wasn't half bad.
- jfk13 9y agoWhen someone sends an SMS to my landline, the phone rings and there's some kind of automated service that reads it out to me. It's even pretty intelligible, usually. This isn't something I ever signed up for explicitly. But maybe it's just my provider?
- jerry_tk 9y agoActually, depending on your phone carrier, it might be possible to send SMS even to landline: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/05/bt_land_text/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/05/bt_land_text/
- John_KZ 9y agoAren't landline and mobile number formats clearly distinct in the US? Afaik in the entirety of Europe mobile numbers have a different prefix than landlines.
- veidr 9y ago> Basic landlines are still a thing Oh yeah, LOL, I quite honestly forgot about the existence of those haha