The mobile carriers’ balance-sheet pricing and ignorance of network economics have made SMS a non-starter in the US.
SMS messaging hasn’t taken off in the United States because, according to The Economist, (1) better alternatives (land-line calls, mobile calls, instant messages) are available at flat rates, (2) the mobile carriers resisted connecting their SMS networks, (3) the mobile carriers’s have overpriced SMS-capable phones, encouraging their customers to hang on to their old phones. [Thanks Marketingfix]
As long as the mobile carriers base their pricing on debts they incurred in the nineties and not on what they cost to deliver or what they’re worth, they’re going to retard the development of the mobile Internet in the US. By they time they (or their receivers) wake up to the what’s happening, the wireless nearlynet will own the market.