I am not sure this is true. European countries are smaller but they are not that small. The number of people sending SMS to a foreign number regularly is I gues

I am not sure this is true. European countries are smaller but they are not that small. The number of people sending SMS to a foreign number regularly is I guess not significant. Potentially it was easier for people working abroad to stay in touch with people back home. If anything like that, it would be more true that it's the cost of SMS within the country - it was always increasingly unlimited but not 10+ years ago, mine was I think 9 cents. If you had like a 1GB of data, then it was a no brainer to save the 9 cents.