Monday, November 14, 2011

War on Texts

It's no wonder that SMS texting alone is a 100 Billion dollar a year industry! - Sam
I'm currently engaged in a war on text, or a passive resistance against texts. When I upgraded to the new iPhone AT&T demanded that I give up my reasonable 200 messages a month plan and get an unlimited plan. Based on the number of txts I use, it was more cost effective to cancel.  At the $0.20 per text message I am paying roughly $1,500 a kilobyte for data if sent over text message. Lovely, huh?
How can I live my life without text messages?  I am working hard to advocate people to use alternate methods.  As an Apple fanboy, I first encourage everyone to buy an iPhone with iOS5 on it.  Apple's latest system checks if the other person is using an iPhone and if they are it sends the message through "iMessages" using the data connection.  If my phone tells me the other person doesn't have iMessages I think through my other options.
I have a Google Voice account - and I can send SMS messages from that account and it goes out just like an SMS and people can response to it and I can get it in Google Voice application over normal data.  In theory, if I were just trying to avoid paying for texts this would be the logical alternative.  This is probably what I would be doing if AT&T fired the first shot by trying to force me into an unlimited plan.  Since they want to take my money I want to take theirs by convincing all of my friends to stop using text messages and more importantly stop giving AT&T money.  To do this means I can't be sending txts to people I know are paying for plans.
The tool I use depends on the person I am trying to communicate with.  My three techniques are Facebook Messenger, G+ Messenger or Twitter Direct Message.  So if you're getting one of these types of messages from me, now you know why.  I'm fighting The Man.
I haven't engaged the nuclear option yet.  It's possible to actually tell AT&T to put SMS block on your account so that it's impossible to receive txt messages.  I've thought about it - but I'm still going to be willing to receive TXTs from you, just don't expect to get one in response from me.