4 ms·

What an anachronistic technology in a world of ubiquitous internet connections. I, for one, hate SMS.

gaius 16y ago
a world of ubiquitous internet connections Haha, I dunno what world that is, I regularly travel to places where there's no GPRS/EDGE/whatever but there is good ol' GSM. Or sometimes there is data but it's prohibitively expensive. Incidentally if you hate SMS you probably just have a crap phone. BlackBerry for one presents the same interface for SMS, IM, whatever, the underlying transport is irrelevant to the experience. I guess iPhone and Android are the same.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > I guess iPhone and Android are the same. Nope, the interface is not unified, they have no equivalent to BBM. Though in my experience, their SMS experience is quite acceptable.
- Derbasti 16y ago
  I can tell you what world that is. It is the 'old world', Europe. I live in Germany. I have an iPhone. I have 'net access virtually everywhere including all of western Europe. I pay 30$ per month for it. I have lived in the US for a while, and I can tell you: US mobile carriers offer incredibly bad service for incredibly high prices. All of western Europe is way ahead of AT&T or Comcast in these regards. I have not had a single 'dropped call', ever. This problem just does not exist outside the US (except when you enter a tunnel, of course). Hence, I can always send emails, or even Facebook or Twitter updates from anywhere. Why would I want to send an SMS instead?
  - jarek 16y ago
    Your "old world", western Europe, is an outlier. Head out into the middle of nowhere in northern Norway and see how your Facebook works.
    - Derbasti 16y ago
      You could argue that Norway would be 'Northern Europe', but I guess that is hypocritical. Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium and England have very good coverage, though.
      - jarek 16y ago
        Those countries combine for approximately 242.63 million people and 1,236,644 km^2, or 3.5% of the world's population and about 0.8% of the world's total land area.
      - dagw 16y ago
        Perhaps England has gotten better of the past few years, but I found that 3G coverage in northern England (outside of larger towns and cities) was very spotty about 3 years ago. Hell even GSM was spotty in quite a few place.
  - dkersten 16y ago
    In Ireland the service is much worse than mainland Europe. Also, "anywhere" in your last sentence does not include large parts of: Africa, The middle-east, Asia, Central and South America, large parts of Australia. So, the problem does exist outside of the US. Ok, Ok, I get that you mean in equivelent non-US places the problem doesn't exist.
  - gst 16y ago
    I can fully confirm this (I've too lived in Europe and the US). Europe (Austria): I currently get data traffic at 4 Euros per GB. No monthly costs. Alternatively I can also get 9 GB for 8.80 per month. Also possible in combination with 4 Eurocents per minute for voice calls - of course also without monthly costs (or alternatively: 8.80 Euros per month for 1000 minutes AND 1000 SMS). Usually you've got cellphone coverage _everywhere_ (this also includes many mountain tops in the Alps). US: I wasn't able to buy just a GSM SIM but had also to buy some cheap phone to get the SIM. Data rates are just crazy - something like $20 for 100 MB IIRC. Coverage is quite poor outside of metro areas: In Austria I would get upset if I don't have 3G coverage, in the US I was happy when I had GSM coverage. And of course, T-Mobile and AT&T use incompatible 3G frequencies - meaning if you buy a phone with one of them you cannot use it with the other one.
    - dagw 16y ago
      Extrapolation from a small and rich country like Austria to the entirety of Europe is very dangerous and quite likely to give inaccurate results.
      - Derbasti 16y ago
        So you are arguing that the US should actually be rated a 'poor' country by central/western European standards.
        dagw 16y ago
        What? No not at all. I've said nothing one way or the other about the US.
dagw 16y ago
Ubiquitous internet is decades away. You don't have to wander far off the beaten track for SMS to be the only viable form of mobile communication. SMS is great in that it works in places where the signal is too weak for phone calls. Also sending an SMS is a good order of magnitute cheaper than sending an email when roaming.

gaius 16y ago

a world of ubiquitous internet connections Haha, I dunno what world that is, I regularly travel to places where there's no GPRS/EDGE/whatever but there is good ol' GSM. Or sometimes there is data but it's prohibitively expensive. Incidentally if you hate SMS you probably just have a crap phone. BlackBerry for one presents the same interface for SMS, IM, whatever, the underlying transport is irrelevant to the experience. I guess iPhone and Android are the same.

masklinn 16y ago
> I guess iPhone and Android are the same. Nope, the interface is not unified, they have no equivalent to BBM. Though in my experience, their SMS experience is quite acceptable.
Derbasti 16y ago
I can tell you what world that is. It is the 'old world', Europe. I live in Germany. I have an iPhone. I have 'net access virtually everywhere including all of western Europe. I pay 30$ per month for it. I have lived in the US for a while, and I can tell you: US mobile carriers offer incredibly bad service for incredibly high prices. All of western Europe is way ahead of AT&T or Comcast in these regards. I have not had a single 'dropped call', ever. This problem just does not exist outside the US (except when you enter a tunnel, of course). Hence, I can always send emails, or even Facebook or Twitter updates from anywhere. Why would I want to send an SMS instead?
- jarek 16y ago
  Your "old world", western Europe, is an outlier. Head out into the middle of nowhere in northern Norway and see how your Facebook works.
  - Derbasti 16y ago
    You could argue that Norway would be 'Northern Europe', but I guess that is hypocritical. Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium and England have very good coverage, though.
    - jarek 16y ago
      Those countries combine for approximately 242.63 million people and 1,236,644 km^2, or 3.5% of the world's population and about 0.8% of the world's total land area.
    - dagw 16y ago
      Perhaps England has gotten better of the past few years, but I found that 3G coverage in northern England (outside of larger towns and cities) was very spotty about 3 years ago. Hell even GSM was spotty in quite a few place.
- dkersten 16y ago
  In Ireland the service is much worse than mainland Europe. Also, "anywhere" in your last sentence does not include large parts of: Africa, The middle-east, Asia, Central and South America, large parts of Australia. So, the problem does exist outside of the US. Ok, Ok, I get that you mean in equivelent non-US places the problem doesn't exist.
- gst 16y ago
  I can fully confirm this (I've too lived in Europe and the US). Europe (Austria): I currently get data traffic at 4 Euros per GB. No monthly costs. Alternatively I can also get 9 GB for 8.80 per month. Also possible in combination with 4 Eurocents per minute for voice calls - of course also without monthly costs (or alternatively: 8.80 Euros per month for 1000 minutes AND 1000 SMS). Usually you've got cellphone coverage _everywhere_ (this also includes many mountain tops in the Alps). US: I wasn't able to buy just a GSM SIM but had also to buy some cheap phone to get the SIM. Data rates are just crazy - something like $20 for 100 MB IIRC. Coverage is quite poor outside of metro areas: In Austria I would get upset if I don't have 3G coverage, in the US I was happy when I had GSM coverage. And of course, T-Mobile and AT&T use incompatible 3G frequencies - meaning if you buy a phone with one of them you cannot use it with the other one.
  - dagw 16y ago
    Extrapolation from a small and rich country like Austria to the entirety of Europe is very dangerous and quite likely to give inaccurate results.
    - Derbasti 16y ago
      So you are arguing that the US should actually be rated a 'poor' country by central/western European standards.
      - dagw 16y ago
        What? No not at all. I've said nothing one way or the other about the US.

dagw 16y ago

Ubiquitous internet is decades away. You don't have to wander far off the beaten track for SMS to be the only viable form of mobile communication. SMS is great in that it works in places where the signal is too weak for phone calls. Also sending an SMS is a good order of magnitute cheaper than sending an email when roaming.