by Calvin Robinson on March 29, 2010.

Hey, I’m on a pesimistic vibe about mobile network providers tonight, why not roll with it?

During Kevin Holley‘s (co-inventor of SMS) presentation at #140conf London last year, I recall him mentioning that text messages are extremely over-priced. They use up so little bandwidth that the actual cost is practically negligible - which is probably why most networks are quick to bundle these up to entice you into their 18month contracts.

With free Internet access becoming more regularly available, is there even any need to be sending SMS messages? I’m not making a statement, that’s a genuine question.

We have Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerry Messenger, and cross-platform Push-supporting applications like WhatsApp for sending direct messages just as quickly as SMS. Not to forget Instant Messenger programs like GTalk, Skype, AIM, MSN etc. All free. Most of these services offer other benefits – like not having to know your friend’s phone number. We take address books for granted, but if you don’t happen to have your friend’s latest number stored – there’s no way of reaching them. Whereas you can hit them up on Twitter/Facebook/Gtalk/Skype wherever you are, whoever’s phone/Internet connection you’re using.

I think the most important aspect here, is that we don’t need our phones to send quick text messages anymore. We’re using these programs to communicate with our friends all the time on our computers – so when we’re out and about with our phones, it just becomes second nature to continue the conversation over those platforms.