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Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

Ofcom helps protect customers against unexpected roaming charges

UK service providers must notify customers when they connect to a different network

New rules from UK telecoms regulator Ofcom will protect customers when they use their mobile phone on a foreign network. In addition, customers will be alerted if they are inadvertently roaming, perhaps because they're near an international border.
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Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
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Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
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UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
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Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
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Opinion Articles

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Why the cloud will kill SMS text messages... eventually

Mark Bridge writes:

This week my lovely wife made a rare error in leaving her mobile phone behind when she left the house. Fortunately I was working at home, so I was able to answer her calls and relay her messages. But it got me thinking. What were the alternatives?

Well, Mrs B could have gone online and diverted her voice calls to another number. Perhaps to her desk phone, her work mobile or her VoIP number. Not every UK network lets you do this, although the technology is theoretically there. You just pay for the forwarded part of each call. Alternatively, she could have called her voicemail service and picked up messages remotely (in the style of a rogue News of the World journalist, perhaps).

Her email - which is set up on her phone - can also be accessed as webmail, so there’s no problem there.

But text messages?  They can’t be diverted. Unlike Instant Messaging, which turns up on whichever device you’re using, dear old SMS insists on heading for your SIM card.

Now, there are smartphone apps out there that’ll do SMS forwarding. There may even be SMS forwarding apps that can be started remotely. But that’s messy and ultimately unreliable. After all, what happens when your battery goes flat?

Sure, SMS is simple. SMS works on almost every device. However, those aren’t reasons that concern consumers when they’re buying smartphones.

When the features of SMS are compared with IM, SMS looks pretty inflexible. Instant, multi-device and always-on are today’s buzzwords.

Which leads me to my conclusion. Unless networks introduce some kind of online SMS forwarding option, the service could soon be seen as obsolescent. Legacy. Dying.

In fact, a recent report from consultancy Mobile Youth suggested a fondness for IM could cause a 20% drop in text volumes among younger mobile users within the next two years.

On the other hand, reality TV voting will do its best to keep us sending messages, even if we’re chatting about the show on Facebook. Banks and advertisers seem happy to pay for sending SMS, even if we’re moving away from it.

Yes, I think cloud-based services may make conventional text messaging seem horribly out-of-date. And yes, I think they’ll eventually replace it. But, rather like a bad actor hamming his way through a performance of Count Dracula, it looks as though the death of SMS will be a drawn-out affair.

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1 comments on article "Why the cloud will kill SMS text messages... eventually"

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randy fossum

5/6/2011 8:00 AM

As Microsoft Lync server gains steam, then whatever communication tactics users like most form it will emerge as the dominant forms in the workplace. this should be the biggest boost for uc and I think in turn it will drive much of the rest of the communication trends.

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