Is SMS really going to die?

Link: Is SMS really going to die? | mbites.com.

Returning from the 3GSM Congress in Barcelona, I couldn’t help wondering if all the hype was really missing something important – why we love SMS.

A thought-provoking article and in particular a thought-provoking title, to which my answer is a resounding YES.  But SMS is not in any danger while we all have the stomach to continue paying 12.5 pence per text.  Or even the ‘industry average’ oft-quoted recently of 6 pence per text.

A group of four parents I met a while ago bucked the trend.  They worked out that  each of their 14 year old daughters were spending a combined total of nearly £350 each month in text messaging fees alone texting each other.  One bright spark of a parent went out and bought the four teenage girls a Blackberry each @ £12/month and taught them to PIN each other (which is a negligible cost per message).  The average spend of £350 reduced to £48 immediately. 

So I very much agree with Mike’s perspective and I wholeheartedly agree with his summation that:

People LOVE messaging, and they’ll do it by the cheapest, most widely
available means, and that’s going to be SMS for a long time to come.

Clearly SMS is the most widely available mobile communications medium at this time.  We are thus doomed for the time being to continue paying stupid rates for sending 160 characters to each other while the operators continue to make their hay. 

What would the UK mobile industry do if, overnight, everyone adopted the example of the parents above and swapped to Blackberry and dumped text? 

There’s clearly a reason why when you walk into an operator-run mobile phone store, the Blackberries are hidden right at the back or not even on display……..