| Why Not Text Message Over GPRS ? |  Search
|
|
NowSMS Support Forums ⬆ MMS & SMS Technical Discussions (unsupported) ⬆ Archive through August 08, 2004 ⬆ |
◄ ► |
| Author | Message | |||
| J Roe New member Username: Quantass Post Number: 2 Registered: 12-2003 |
Why do people pay 10cents to 30cents (USD) for a text message via SMS when they could have the 160 characters sent over GPRS or equivalent packet network for about 2cent per Kilobyte ? At these rates i could send 30 text messages for the price of a single SMS. I've seen Java apps like Unplugged World, Buzz2Talk, and fastChat. Each requires a tiny app installed on Java based phones or Symbian OS. Now I'm unfamiliar with the market penetration of Java based or Symbian OS phones but why exactly dont I see these offered apps everywhere ? Their respective websites look like crap and public awareness, to me, seems low. I could be wrong. What is wrong with text messaging over a packet switched network bypassing the standard, inflated cost of SMS/MMS messaging ? Perhaps make a J2ME app on the user's phone which will act as the new messaging client capable of submitting and receiving via WAP Push. Your thoughts. | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 3182 Registered: 10-2002 |
Basically, people send SMS because the SMS client is ubiquitous in mobile phones. You don't have to convince all of your friends to install a particular client in order to receive messages from you. If you're in a close circle of friends, then it can make sense to use a specialised client over GPRS. However, you have to be aware of something. When you connect to the operator network using GPRS, you are assigned a private IP address on the operator network. Client software running on that phone can initiate a connection to a server on the internet because the operator usually has a NAT (network address translation) router in place. But an external server on the internet cannot initiate a connection back to you (because you are on a private IP address behind a NAT). This complicates things considerably. And WAP push doesn't really help because it is generally sent over SMS (you can't send it over IP because of the same NAT issue mentioned above). So if the server has to send an SMS anyway, there's no real advantage. So, basically, a messaging application that uses GPRS needs to do polling over the GPRS network to see if there are any new messages waiting. And how quickly a client sees a new posting depends on how often it polls the network. This polling uses up network bandwidth. So if you want the same type of immediacy as SMS, you spend a lot of time polling. Let's say that you sent 16 bytes for polling once a minute(maybe you could do it for less). That is about 23KB per day. I guess you'd still be under 1MB per month, if you did it 7x24 all month. But it would also probably impact your battery life pretty severely. Anyway, those are the issues as I see them. I think it is a fascinating idea ... but it is tough to get around all of this polling. | |||
| Bryce Norwood - NowSMS Support Board Administrator Username: Bryce Post Number: 3183 Registered: 10-2002 |
P.S. - I will say that SMSBug is an interesting hybrid approach. You use a specialised client on the phone to send your SMS. They deliver the message to the recipient as an SMS, so the recipient doesn't require a special client. | |||
| J Roe New member Username: Quantass Post Number: 3 Registered: 12-2003 |
Thank you very much, Bryce. Very informative! | |||
