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It is good that commercial messengers forced GSM association to finally create E2EE standards. The reason why telcos want you to use RCS becomes obvious if you

It is good that commercial messengers forced GSM association to finally create E2EE standards. The reason why telcos want you to use RCS becomes obvious if you calculate how much 1Gb of data costs if sent as SMS (I guess that one could buy a car with this money).

scarface_74 2y ago
Does any carrier still charge for SMS messages?
- lxgr 2y ago
  I'd say it's the norm rather than the exception outside of the US. US operators do things quite a bit differently from the rest of the world; for example, prepaid cards without a monthly fee are not really a thing, i.e. essentially every plan has a monthly fee, but that then almost always includes texting. Outside the US, it's usually possible to receive calls and SMS on a prepaid SIM without paying anything other than maybe the occasional top-up to not lose the number; in exchange, outbound texts and calls are usually paid.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    I believe the distinction that separated the US from the rest of the world is that US carriers charged the recipient of a message, while the rest of the world charged the sender. I don't know if that's true for evrryer carrier or if it's still true today, but it made a major difference. It's also the reason apps threaten you with fees ("this service may cost you money") when all they do is send a verification SMS. Receiving messages is free in most places but because of a handful of shitty carriers apps now have this warning embedded in them.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      It’s actually a “shared cost” model, not really “called party pays”, as far as I know. And as far as I understand, this is all downstream of US mobile numbers not having a dedicated prefix identifying them. They have region-specific area codes just like landlines to which calls are physically routed, and from there it’s routed onwards to wherever the mobile phone might be. That could well be a long-distance leg of which the caller is unaware, so it would be surprising to bill them for it. That leaves only the called party. This model was then probably just carried over to SMS.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        US carriers haven’t charged for long distance calls for decades at least for domestic calls. Besides with number portability, you can keep your same mobile number when you change carriers no matter what the original region was. I’ve had my same number for over 20 years and have changed carriers 5 times.
        lxgr 2y ago
        They're largely not charging end users for it anymore because the cost is just too low these days, true, but as I understand that's still how the pricing model evolved. > you can keep your same mobile number when you change carriers no matter what the original region was Yes, but only because all carriers have physical or at least logical/rented infrastructure in effectively all "rate centers" [1]. The call still goes to whatever rate center your number corresponds to (barring other agreements, I assume, e.g. the originating and terminating carrier having VoIP interconnectivity). That's very different in countries that have dedicated prefixes for mobile numbers: The originating carrier can immediately detect the target network (instead of target region) from the prefix and route the call to the nearest interconnection point between the two. This means that the terminating carrier usually carries the traffic for the longest geographic stretch, something for which they usually/historically got to bill the originating carrier via interconnection fees. Today, these fees are either gone or nominal/heavily regulated, but the more efficient routing is still a factor for reliability. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_center
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      No one pays extra for SMS - sender or receiver. I’m not aware of any carrier in the US that charges.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        Explicit charges are very rare these days, but there are at least still metered plans that count both incoming and outgoing texts against a monthly maximum.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  Mine either provides 120 SMS/minutes or unlimited text and call. I used to use the 120 minutes version and almost exclusively used it for phone calls. These days I'm on unlimited because of a combo discount on my phone. Most of the world isn't using SMS/MMS so lots of places have carriers that still charge for the feature.

scarface_74 2y ago

Does any carrier still charge for SMS messages?

lxgr 2y ago
I'd say it's the norm rather than the exception outside of the US. US operators do things quite a bit differently from the rest of the world; for example, prepaid cards without a monthly fee are not really a thing, i.e. essentially every plan has a monthly fee, but that then almost always includes texting. Outside the US, it's usually possible to receive calls and SMS on a prepaid SIM without paying anything other than maybe the occasional top-up to not lose the number; in exchange, outbound texts and calls are usually paid.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  I believe the distinction that separated the US from the rest of the world is that US carriers charged the recipient of a message, while the rest of the world charged the sender. I don't know if that's true for evrryer carrier or if it's still true today, but it made a major difference. It's also the reason apps threaten you with fees ("this service may cost you money") when all they do is send a verification SMS. Receiving messages is free in most places but because of a handful of shitty carriers apps now have this warning embedded in them.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    It’s actually a “shared cost” model, not really “called party pays”, as far as I know. And as far as I understand, this is all downstream of US mobile numbers not having a dedicated prefix identifying them. They have region-specific area codes just like landlines to which calls are physically routed, and from there it’s routed onwards to wherever the mobile phone might be. That could well be a long-distance leg of which the caller is unaware, so it would be surprising to bill them for it. That leaves only the called party. This model was then probably just carried over to SMS.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      US carriers haven’t charged for long distance calls for decades at least for domestic calls. Besides with number portability, you can keep your same mobile number when you change carriers no matter what the original region was. I’ve had my same number for over 20 years and have changed carriers 5 times.
      - lxgr 2y ago
        They're largely not charging end users for it anymore because the cost is just too low these days, true, but as I understand that's still how the pricing model evolved. > you can keep your same mobile number when you change carriers no matter what the original region was Yes, but only because all carriers have physical or at least logical/rented infrastructure in effectively all "rate centers" [1]. The call still goes to whatever rate center your number corresponds to (barring other agreements, I assume, e.g. the originating and terminating carrier having VoIP interconnectivity). That's very different in countries that have dedicated prefixes for mobile numbers: The originating carrier can immediately detect the target network (instead of target region) from the prefix and route the call to the nearest interconnection point between the two. This means that the terminating carrier usually carries the traffic for the longest geographic stretch, something for which they usually/historically got to bill the originating carrier via interconnection fees. Today, these fees are either gone or nominal/heavily regulated, but the more efficient routing is still a factor for reliability. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_center
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    No one pays extra for SMS - sender or receiver. I’m not aware of any carrier in the US that charges.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Explicit charges are very rare these days, but there are at least still metered plans that count both incoming and outgoing texts against a monthly maximum.
jeroenhd 2y ago
Mine either provides 120 SMS/minutes or unlimited text and call. I used to use the 120 minutes version and almost exclusively used it for phone calls. These days I'm on unlimited because of a combo discount on my phone. Most of the world isn't using SMS/MMS so lots of places have carriers that still charge for the feature.