WhatsApp vs SMS: how much a message costs

Sorry but this "article" has missed so many things. What about when most of us use free WIFI, where's that calculation, where's the group .... ugh whatever.
 
Grep said:
Sorry but this "article" has missed so many things. What about when most of us use free WIFI, where's that calculation, where's the group .... ugh whatever.
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Wifi isn't really free, it is costing someone for the data and the infrastructure.
 
whatwhat said:
Wifi isn't really free, it is costing someone for the data and the infrastructure.
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"free" as in WhatsApp uses maybe R0.01 a year in data at ADSL rates. R2/gig for, those 5MB are 0.05% of a gig, so about a cent for all the WhatsApp messages.
(could also be totally free if using AlwaysOn's free data allocation each day)
 
Oh look, a repeat of the previous article with bad comparisons, that makes all the same mistakes.

As usual.

Yay.

I know the article writers read the comments, pity they don't absorb the knowledge.
 
elvis_presley said:
Oh look, a repeat of the previous article with bad comparisons, that makes all the same mistakes.

As usual.

Yay.

I know the article writers read the comments, pity they don't absorb the knowledge.
Click to expand...

They are too busy with the new OpenWeb specials every week, so they just copy and paste these old articles every week.
 
whatwhat said:
They are too busy with the new OpenWeb specials every week, so they just copy and paste these old articles every week.
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The dead giveaway that they don't give a crap, is the Fox-News style of reporting. Put out an unsubstantiated, unresearched article, everyone points out the errors, wait a few days until it dies down and then cite that article as fact. This is a big problem in "journalism" nowdays, and all too common. In this case I'm referring to the "In our first comparison we found that if SMS was priced like data, a message would cost a fraction of a cent." in the piece.
 
Actually on some Telkom packages WhatsApp traffic is free since Social Networking traffic is not counted.
 
Grep said:
Sorry but this "article" has missed so many things. What about when most of us use free WIFI, where's that calculation, where's the group .... ugh whatever.
Click to expand...

And the amount of videos and images that get up\downloaded via the service. Isn't it actually more like a glorified mms service than sms :confused:

I found this whole "MTN targets 'free loading' WhatsApp" comparison to only sms thing a bit controversial from the get go since it's a mix between sms\mms\email like attachments. Those "Media bytes sent\received" can easily eat up data priced between R0.15 and upto R2 per Megabyte.

MTN 90cents per MMS
Vodacom MMS 0.94c upto 1.28

2 months later:

What Vodacom and MTN don’t want you to know about WhatsApp and Facebook in SA
 
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What the article fails to raise is the actual cost to the service provider to send an sms, vs to send a whatsapp message. Basically MTN, Vodacom et al are making _massive_ amounts of unreasonable profit on sms messages... no wonder they're upset with Whatsapp cutting into their cash cow.
 
what makes them think that we would use SMS if whatsapp was not around? What money is whatsapp MAKING worth fighting for over these networks(i know its more about what the other is losing but..)? I have never paid whatsapp a cent. Is there something else going on we should know about? What is whatsapp also doing with my contact list and its phone numbers? wonders....

so any instant message over wireless data is a threat to their SMS revenue. SMS is obsolete!

the circus is upset their main event is not drawing a crowd anymore, boohoo, so the clowns throw a tantrum.
 
Unless I missed the point of this, the summation of the article is that the Instant Message (WhatsApp) is significantly cheaper than the archaic SMS. Therefore, the incessant and painful bleating of the Mobile Operators is all about its users foregoing the costly SMS and thereby eating into their overpriced, consumer fleecing SMS revenue.

Grief! :mad:
 
Boo hoo to the mtn and co Whatsapp will continue to get more users as long as they still charge us like they do for an sms, its criminal to pay R1+ for an sms in 2015
 
Whatsapp is a whole generation technology ahead of SMS so can't be compared

It has functionality like presence, media and calling all built in, and the ack of the messages sent is better.

SMS uses signalling channels on GSM so when SMS's were on the increase, operators had to dedicate more slots to signalling. This was originally meant to be an efficient way to piggy back on unused resources in the signal channels, but as the usage increased it became less efficient

With all-IP networks such as Wi-Fi, Whatsapp is efficient because it all forms part of converged IP traffic. Relative to total IP traffic, a single short text messages gets lost in the total. That is the extreme opposite philosophy of SMS on GSM
 
Chris.Geerdts said:
Whatsapp is a whole generation technology ahead of SMS so can't be compared
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+1

The article compares two vastly different things with each other. For SMS each operator needs its own SMSC, whereas WhatsApp effectively shares their servers among all their clients on an international clientbase. Reality is, SMS is much more expensive to the operator than merely the data cost, and is a technology that is quickly being replaced by the vastly more cost-effective IM platforms.
 
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