Stan Beer
Monday, 22 June 2009 03:46
IT Industry -
Market
Page 2 of 2
A number of studies have shown that SMS is by several
orders of magnitude the most expensive form of common communication,
far more so than any other data or voice service.
An SMS of less than 160 characters, which costs
from 20-25 cents, uses a miniscule amount of bandwidth - approximately
100 bytes, 0.1KB!
Like elsewhere in the world, Australians are paying more than $1000 per
1 MB of data transferred by SMS. This is thousands of times more
expensive than using mobile 3G networks to send data over the Internet.
Yet Australia, where the number of mobile phones, approximately matches
the nation's population of 22 million, continues to fill the pockets of
mobile operators in increasing numbers, a fact that makes the operators
increasingly chirpy.
According to social researcher and
futurist, Mark McCrindle, this report is an interesting reflection of
Australia’s wider lifestyle trends.
“Telstra’s State of The
Nation report reveals the uptake and influence of mobile technology on
Australians, particularly texting. The fact that one in three prefer
texting to other communication forms signals the natural fit of this
technology to our increasingly time poor, busy lifestyles,” McCrindle
said.
Telstra Country Wide’s General Manager for Melbourne, Patrick O’Beirne agreed.
“Texting has become an indispensable part of our everyday lives.
“As
a valued form of communication Telstra has undertaken the State of the
Nation research to track Australians’ texting nature – the how, when,
where, what and why. This has revealed some interesting results and
social insights about Australia as a text crazy nation,” Mr O’Beirne
said.
In other texting trends, Australians said picture
messages were popular, and use picture messaging on their mobiles most
while travelling (44%), buying houses (33%) or at the birth of their
children (33%).
The trend for prolific texting seems to be
causing Australians trouble in the romance department though. One in
four Australians said they discovered their partner was cheating by
reading a text message – and a further 20 per cent had accidentally
sent a text meant for their partner or lover to somebody else.
Something not explored in the report, however, are the dangers that SMS
poses to the financial well being of young people, especially
teenagers, who are among the most prolific texters. Studies have shown
that uncontrolled use of SMS in the past has saddled teenagers with thousands of dollars of debt.