Quote:
Originally Posted by Effendi
In Europe people LOVE sms much more than in the Americas. That's the big difference. SMS have entered our lives so deeply that now it's really hard to change habit. And of course that's much higher among young people, i.e. the future generations. Operators do know it and they get really A LOT of money from SMS which cost them nearly nothing.
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For the first 5 or 6 years of digital cellular in the US texting was not a big deal. I'd say most American customers had no idea how to send a text and some didn't even know how to read one if they received it. There are a number of reasons for this:
1. Because we pay for incoming calls Americans didn't give out their cellular numbers to just everyone. It was almost impolite to ask someone for his cellular number; sort of like asking for the combination to open their post office box.
2. Analog service hung around for a long time and you couldn't be sure if the other party could actually receive your text or not.
3. Similarly, the text systems between the various carriers were not well connected. GSM worked pretty well but you could not exchange texts with customers on CDMA and TDMA systems. Often customers on one TDMA system could not send a test to another TDMA carrier.
4. The competition was all over voice minutes. Folks could buy these huge buckets of voice minutes, like 3000 minutes for $50, but text was still 15c each. Why send a text for 15c when you can talk 9 minutes for the same price?
In my area this situation continued up until Hurricane Katrina (Aug 2005) damaged and overloaded most of the communications system. People who knew how to use text found that it would still work when voice would not. Since then many more people around here know how to use text, even if they don't do so regularly.
Young people tend to use text even when it's not the most cost-effective method. They are the reason that carriers now offer large text bucket bolt-ons for voice plans.