The base station (edge) and network-infrastructure (backhaul) equipment probably can't be purchased without SMS functionality at this point. There's no delivery

The base station (edge) and network-infrastructure (backhaul) equipment probably can't be purchased without SMS functionality at this point. There's no delivery commitment on SMS/MMS messages and traffic at essentially every site is cyclical. SMS gets delivered in the idle space, therefore the marginal bandwidth cost is literally zero. That pretty much leaves the SMSC/MMSC (the dedicated hardware that processes messages in the center/edge of the mobile network). Perhaps $0.10/message was justified in 2000 when this stuff was only being used by phone geeks, but I think there's a bit of margin in it these days. :)