[asterisk-users] Re: Sending SMS

[Al Bochter]

Steve

Well I have 300 for $5.00 thats .016 cents each IF I use all 300 now if 
I go over I pay .15 each ( I Think) Never went over
I see that the cell providers are looking at SMS as internet data over 
there system and I do agree that there is more money in data than voice 
services.

Best regards,

Al Bochter
Bochter Services
http://www.BochterServices.com/?t=Email



Steve Totaro wrote:

> Gordon Henderson wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, Al Bochter wrote:
>>
>>> I don't see why the cost to send SMS is around .15 each. What does 
>>> the gateway know that I don't know about sending the SMS.
>>> I just think .15 for each SMS send is high.  Or am I just over 
>>> looking something?
>>
>>
>> You're missing nothing; The telcos have us by the short & curlys. For 
>> them, it's money for old rope. They probably (in the UK at least) 
>> make many times more money through TXT messages than voice. The "base 
>> rate" here is about 12p a message. 12p for 160 bytes, or a single 
>> data packet over their network - which would be over £700 per MB. 
>> There are now "bolt ons" or additional packages depending on the 
>> network you're with - eg. with my contract I get up to 500 "free" 
>> TXTs a month. I know some people who send dozens a day here. 
>> (Especially young people - I think most 10 year olds now have mobile 
>> phones!).
>>
>> It's scandalous, but no-one challenged it when they first anounced it 
>> because we all thought it was fantastic! The best thing they ever did 
>> was for the 4 networks (in the UK) to agree to pass TXT messages 
>> between each other. That was some 6 or 7 years ago, maybe more, and 
>> that's when it really took off big time in the UK.
>>
>> I doubt it'll ever change because "that's the way it's always been", 
>> and no-one is going to challenge them in a serious fashion. (And 
>> no-one else can afford to build up a network to make it possible!)
>>
>> I've not really looked into the TXT sending business via landline in 
>> the UK, but I think it's basically a call to an 09xxx number - which 
>> are premium rate numbers, charging up to £1.50 a minute. Lets hope 
>> the 160 byte packet gets sent in less than a minute!
>>
>> The stats. are amazing too.  I looked at wholesale connection last 
>> year for a project. They had rates of up to a million messages a 
>> month. (do the sums and workout how many miuntes there are in a 
>> month...)
>>
>> A quick search shows that in 2004, we in the UK were seding over 20 
>> billion TXT messages a year - Thats 75 million a day. Not bad for a 
>> population of 65 million... Who knows what the rate is today...
>>
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/22/uk_text_message_volumes_break/
>>
>> Ah, that was 2004. Looks like we're almost doing that per month:
>>
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/26/uk_sms_record/
>>
>> 3.3 billion texts sent in May 2006...
>>
>> Gordon
>
> Text messaging is not that big in the US for some reason.  Well 
> anyways, on my T-Mobile phone, I have an unlimited text message 
> package that cost $15/mo.  I am not sure how many constitutes 
> "unlimited" though, I have not read the small print.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
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