@pho4cexa @ajroach42 perhaps this is a USA thing? In Europe traditional SMS messages are cheap and free to receive (as are phone calls); you can often get a bundle of free ones for a few quid or as part of your mobile phone contract. MMS does get charged for (and doesn't always work well across devices) but you can use Signal instead for this purpose..

@vfrmedia @pho4cexa SMS isn’t widely charged for in the US anymore.

For years, it was charged at a very high rate.

Either way, the data occupied by an sms gets sent regardless of if there is a message to be sent. It’s a hack around some kind of control data used to keep phones connected to towers.

Charging any amount for traditional sms is essentially a scam.

@vfrmedia @ajroach42 the cost isn't quite as terrible under my current plan as it used to be but there was a time only a few years ago when I was charged $3 for the first one sent *or received* (spam or not) and $0.15 for each thereafter, up to 100, whereupon an additional fee was assessed.

Next you'll be telling me Europe has fast cheap broadband internet everywhere too 😭

@pho4cexa @ajroach42

it operates similar to how radio pagers work using spare bandwidth on the control channels, deployment did require upgraded software in base stations although European networks were quicker to reduce the costs/allow interoperability (eg in UK until late 90s you could only send messages within a single network).

This is GSM900 base station activity in UK, whist I can't decode the traffic you can see the patterns. On the left is a special allocation for railways.

@vfrmedia @pho4cexa @ajroach42 In the USA it depends on your plan. Most major networks offer plans with unlimited SMS and in-country calling (and sometimes even "unlimited data", even though that's generally a lie). Personally, I'm on a plan with a lower base price but for example 1000 texts cost $5 above the base price. For my usage style, it's cheaper overall than "unlimited" plans.