Interesting 'insight', as usual.

I just thought I'd counter the UK-centric discussion on SMS costs by quoting the cost in China. It costs "1 mao" which is 0.1RMB per SMS - that's about 1.4p in UK money - and they still make a profit.

Note that labour is very cheap here, so that cost is minimised. Technology stuff usually costs a little bit more than in 'the west'.

It might indicate how much profit is being made there.

SMSes cost virtually nothing for the phone companies to send, they would probably still made a profit in the UK with texts at 1.4p. It's just a few dozen characters, takes up hardly any bandwidth at all. My understanding is that SMS prices are almost pure profit, even at 10p a text.

Labour costs aren't really as much of an issue for mobile networks because it's not a labour-intensive industry. Mobile phone towers need repairs from time to time but they generally operate automatically. I should think the main labour costs for the networks would be in customer support and sales services.

I get a free sms package each month. And still I only to sms to people when there is a need. 160 chars is outdated. SMS should be free and at least 4096 chars. In general I just e-mails from my phone. Attaching picture and short movies. And MMS are horrible expensive compared to e-mail on my phone mms are. They are just milking the non tech-savy.

Snoyt