It still does.
SMS is sent within unassigned space within management frames.
Cell works kind of like ATM - Asynchronous Transfer Mode, which unlike packet-switched networks, continually transmits frames (even empty ones), as a means of ensuring stable, performant delivery.
Like ATM, cell kind of does the same thing (that is, when it makes a connection).
Within those frames are segments which are allocated for different purposes, someone got the great idea to transmit buts within a segment that wasn’t yet assigned to anything by the standard.
Those segments can hold… 160 characters (IIRC), and for technical reasons, this became 140 characters (again, IIRC).
So whenever your phone pings a tower, those frames get sent. From a bare transmission perspective, there’s no additional cost. The cost is on the backend hardware that extracts the SMS and the routing of it. So there’s some cost, but at 10 cents per message, there’s got to be 9.9 cents of gross profit (just guessing).
AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Messages went from $.05, to $.10, to $.20 to send and receive. That was in the span of three years. All of the companies said it wasn’t collision. They just happened to arrive upon massive increases separately.
If I recall, one of the CEOs said “We’re raising the prices to save customers money. This way they’ll be an unlimited plan”
The telcos should have been broken up then. Instead we’ve seen even more mergers.
phoneymouse@lemmy.world 5 months ago
They fucked themselves. It became more worthwhile to just use data.
billiam0202@lemmy.world 5 months ago
And who provides the data?
knexcar@lemmy.world 5 months ago
WiFi?
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
You had to pay to receive? wtf.gif
So some rando could ruin you by sending a bazillion SMS messages?
skulblaka@startrek.website 5 months ago
You could ignore them and not recieve. But then you’ve got a billion pending messages that you don’t know the content of.
BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
The messages weren’t pushed to you? You got a notification and then had to request the actual message? That would be even more stupid, as it’s using twice the bandwidth.
Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
I know you meant collusion, but in case anyone else didn’t, it’s not collision.
Maeve@kbin.social 5 months ago
Where is this?
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 5 months ago
This was certainly in the US at one point. I remember having 500 per month, which was an absolute joke for 16 year old me with a girlfriend the next town over, and paying 25 send and 5 receive afterwards. Old cell plans were absolute trash.
Maeve@kbin.social 5 months ago
Jesus. I remember my first cell was $35/month, 350 minutes of talk, no data and unlimited texts, before smart phones. On contact.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Probably trying to get the last juice to squeeze as more and more traffic moves to web based messaging