Will MMS Ever Kill SMS?

SMS text messaging, which involves the sending of short messages from once cell phone user to another, has been around for a number of years now, and is no longer a "new" technology by any means.

MMS on the other hand is a "Multimedia Messaging System" used to send pictures, animations, and even video footage between mobile phones. There has been some speculation that MMS could eventually rise to completely take the place of the original SMS format.

Most industry analysts, however, believe this is unlikely, just because SMS is such a simple, easy, and convenient system to make use of. MMS is fun and interactive, but it isn't always necessary for simple communications, and some people prefer the basic text format. Aside from this, the very culture of text messaging was built around the old text-only system with abbreviated words and 160 character limits.

Also, the fact that cell phone providers can get away with charging $0.10 per individual text message sent is an incentive for companies to keep promoting the system. The fact that SMS messaging use so little bandwidth makes them cost almost nothing to transmit, creating a huge cash cow for providers.

There's little question that subscribers still desire the simplicity associated with good old plain text messaging, while providers are more than happy to keep making money off it. In short, SMS likely won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

About the Author: Jeremy Maddock is the webmaster of TeleClick.ca, a trusted source of telecommunications news.