Comment by modo_mario
3 years ago
SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.
I think that differs very much per country. The last time I have received an SMS from a human in NL must have been a decade ago. In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.
It's definitely in use in Europe, but it depends. I and my wife use SMS extensively, that's simply because we both use very cheap phone plans without a built-in data plan - i.e. no internet unless we have wi-fi (the pro side of that is that the yearly phone expenses is in the (equivalent of) low tens of dollars, not hundreds of dollars). When we're networked we use Line messaging.
My wife's boss communicates with all her employees by SMS (mass SMS - works like group communication, both ways).
AddEdit: Airlines send their notifications and links to boarding passes etc. via SMS. Dentist and doctor appointments, other public office appointments (e.g. my upcoming passport renewal), document notifications (from pension fund insurance companies for example), public warnings ("Toxic fire nearby - close your windows"), and more, are via SMS where I live.
Huh, how cheap is that? I’m almost always in wifi range, so I got the cheapest plan I could find in Germany (4€/month, so 48€/year), and even that still includes 1 GB of data (I do need the data, to sync my shopping list for example, but I’m curious how low one can go :D).
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Most European countries have had unlimited SMS way before messaging apps where a thing
Not true at all. Most european countries are still pay per message.
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That was ages ago. Most people have unlimited text messages these days (SMS, not MMS).
Yes, but the point is that in some countries this happened so late that everyone already switched to Whatsapp before SMS became effectively free. And once everyone is on Whatsapp there's no point in switching back to SMS.
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Definitely not per country: I regularly use SMS from NL.
> In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.
Yes, but data tariffs were also expensive, while you can send SMS with regular (no-data) tariff.
NL is rather small sample to, say, larger countries like Poland that use SMS quite frequently. And depending on carrier, SMS texting most likely will be completely free with most of the current plans.
Signal's rationale is just Signal's own reluctance to build an umbrella messenger. And given they do drop SMS, still won't introduce usernames it's very hard to actually sell it as a WhatsApp replacement.
And now, with WhatsApp supporting password protected cloud backups and up to 2Gb attachments, I'd say Signal will loose the userbase it acquired during the hype and Musk tweet.
In fact, during 2020 Belarus protests, Signal did nothing to support it's own operations during internet semi-blackout in the country, while Telegram tweaked their server side to provide at least some possibility to know what was happening in big cities. So what are the values of Signal — I don't even know. But they sure did support pillagers and rioters in the USA.
To be even more brazen, Signal is not Apple. They stopped innovating. And they don't have enough political power to convince people do things the new way. Even their zero knowledge server is worthless. Check out the story on FBI cracking down on the leader of some right wing proud boys type of armed group. They tracked him and then compelled to give up access to Signal.
Their innovation stopped at providing solid cryptography that was adopted by most decent messengers already. And they aren't visionaries with cancelling SMS.
UPD: the funniest part is that the service that drops the SMS support still relies on SMS to provide account registration.
This is just an unprecedented level of sarcasm.
Being such a small operation, I think they're making a great decision by focusing on what matters most. "Most startups die by lack of focus". I very much believe this is their first public step towards breaking up with phone number based identity.
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Enlighten me please, how can you register with a username and without a phone number in WhatsApp?
Completely agree with your assessment.
Probably per person than per country.
I really hope SMS keeps on going - it's as a solid of a protocol as email is - no matter where you are, as long as there is a mobile network, you can send a text message.
It's also not secure (e.g., https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/03/can-we-stop-pretending-s...).
I second this. SMS is still great for rural areas where mobile internet is non existent
Not sure that can be said as a blanket statement for the whole of Europe. In the UK SMS isn't common at all anymore.
Not common isn't quite right. Ofcom's report shows that SMS use is shrinking, but it is still an average of 51 messages per user per month.
Source https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/222401/...
SMS decline is probably inevitable though.
That seems really high based on my UK experience. The link says "the average mobile connection sent 51 messages per month". What does it mean for a "connection" to send messages? Could that include messages sent to the user? If so, this number would make sense (OTPs and spam).
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Wow, 51 messages _sent_ per user per month, so it's not even about receiving verification SMS.
> The average mobile connection sent 51 messages per month in 2020, 17 fewer than in 2019.
I'd love to know the median, I assume there's a number of power users that drives up the average. Or bots that are sending out thousands of messages a day.
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"average person sends 51 sms a month" factoid is actually just statistical error...
51 messages per month in 2020.
Does anything let you configure 2fa via WhatsApp yet? I know there are logistics companies starting to offer it as an email alternative for notifications, but for most automated comms and for contact initiation, SMS is still the standard.
I think it would be more accurate to say that ongoing communication via SMS messages isn't common at all any more. They're like a protocol negotiation handshake.
I suspect if you book a health appointment in the UK if your mobile number is listen increasingly you will get a SMS notification via Accurx[0].
I do still occasionally get work conversation initiated via SMS rather than WhatsApp especially if that comes from a phone which is associated with a task or job. Like the out of hours mobile phone which is moved between people.
[0] https://www.accurx.com/
Same in Eastern Europe, where even mobile calls are giving way to WhatsApp, Viber, etc. This is also a common way to call many businesses
I concur, SMS is DEFINITELY still common in Europe. Removing support for SMS would mean all of family will stop using the app now, this is completely silly and US-centric...
Automated messages are pretty much the only thing I get via SMS. Other than the occasional message from my mum who likes to randomly flip between WhatsApp and SMS depending on which way the wind blows.
It's still used in that sense but it's very rarely used for actually sending texts between people.
Basically, SMS used to be a big revenue driver for operators. That business has dried up almost completely. The notion of paying per message is just completely gone. So, operators stopped caring about SMS a long time ago. In the same way, call minutes are increasingly less relevant. It's all about 4G and internet now.
> The notion of paying per message is just completely gone.
Not in Hungary, you still have to pay per message here unless you choose the most expensive plan.
And do people still do that or do they use whatsapp instead? This used to be a multi billion dollar business for operators. Not anymore.
I can only offer a personal anecdote. In Sweden the only SMS messages I receive are marketing spam and appointments from various places (from my hairdresser to dental appointments). Everyone else is either on various messaging apps (FB Messenger, Telegram) or chat apps (Slack, Discord)
What country do live in? I haven’t received an SMS from a human in probably ten years; I live in Europe and everyone uses Signal/WhatsApp
Which countries? It has zero use in the UK (apart from for stuff like parcel deliveries and 2FA). We're 100% WhatsApp.
No we're not.
There's a lot of people here claiming that their personal use is representative of their country, or of Europe as a whole. I get SMS from a lot of people. You don't, probably because a lot of the people you know are on Facebook/Whatsapp and it's more convenient for them to stay with that platform. That doesn't mean that they don't use SMS for anyone else. It just means that you are bubbled.
My experience of mobile messaging the UK is different to yours as might be expected in a country of 60+ million.
The stats show a significant drop as mobile data became cheaper and richer services became available, but still quite a lot of traffic.
I suspect that the people I see using Nokia and Samsung dumb phones will continue to use SMS, so traffic will fall to a sustained tail.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271561/number-of-sent-sm...
2FA, NHS, gov.uk reminders, a large %age of my social group...
WhatsApp is a closed protocol owned by Facebook. It has its uses but relying on it is a mistake.
It's down from the peak, but 40 billion SMSes were sent in the UK in 2021. I would be staggered if this number was majority B2C/2FA.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271561/number-of-sent-sm...
I would be staggered if it wasn't majority spam, OTPs, and automated reminders.
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I send maybe one SMS per year, not every year, when I think a person could be offline or in low signal areas. SMSes get where data don't.
I receive dozens of SMSes from banks with one time passwords for 2FA and payments notifications, from delivery companies to notify me about progresses in my orders plus some spam. It's easier for them to use SMS than anything else because every phone receives SMS right out of the box.