[HN Gopher] Swisscom to discontinue MMS service
___________________________________________________________________
Swisscom to discontinue MMS service
Author : denysvitali
Score : 107 points
Date : 2022-02-09 08:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.swisscom.ch)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.swisscom.ch)
| apoland wrote:
| Is it true that Swiss consumers do not use group texting
| features? I would think this would be a huge disruption if done
| in the US.
| lxgr wrote:
| Yes, this is virtually unused in Europe. People mostly use OTT
| messengers like WhatsApp, Signal etc.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram all have group chats and are
| very popular.
|
| iMessage is not really a thing, despite iOS substantial
| marketshare.
| sschueller wrote:
| And Threema
| memalign wrote:
| It's worth noting that MMS is also how group messages are sent
| (SMS is 1:1 only).
|
| > The most popular messenger app in Switzerland and worldwide is
| WhatsApp. However, we do not recommend WhatsApp or Telegram for
| security reasons (problematic encryption and non-transparent data
| protection guidelines).
|
| But compared to MMS...
| zibzab wrote:
| Yeah, no end-to-end encryption and all that. But how many
| 0-days have been discovered in MMS?
|
| WhatsApp is starting to look like a TLA backdoor in comparison.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| Easier for government to infiltrate a local mobile operator
| than getting into WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal etc.
|
| The revolution will be WhatsApped.
| uf00lme wrote:
| It might be easier for local government to control telcos
| but much more difficult for a foreign government when
| compared to what might be a secret court warrant etc.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| If your opponent is the US government you are already
| doomed.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> But how many 0-days have been discovered in MMS? WhatsApp
| is starting to look like a TLA backdoor in comparison._
|
| Your comparison doesn't make sense. MMS has no need for
| 0-days as it's a basic communication protocol that has zero
| security to begin with.
|
| That's like saying "but how many 0-days does TCP-IP have?"
| zibzab wrote:
| Zero security in what sense?
|
| Is confidentiality of your messages the only thing you care
| about?
|
| Even that you won't get to keep once hit by a WhatsApp
| vulnerability.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> once hit by a WhatsApp vulnerability_
|
| Meh, and once you get hit by a car, you will die. But
| what are the realistic odds of that happening?
|
| You can also get hit by a an IOS or Android RCE 0-day, so
| you might as well give up using a smartphone if you feel
| the security risk is that high. Also, many of those RCE
| exploits used MMS for payload delivery, so your point of
| MMS shielding you from exploits is moot.
|
| In the end, for most consumers, it's a matter of looking
| at the convenience to risk ratio, and MMS is neither very
| convenient nor terribly secure.
| hulitu wrote:
| > In the end, for most consumers, it's a matter of
| looking at the convenience to risk ratio, and MMS is
| neither very convenient nor terribly secure.
|
| Well, most consumers do not accept the same argument for
| http vs https.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Ok, but what does that have to do with it? I never made
| any arguments on http vs https, so why are you going off
| topic? Consumers don't have any tradeoffs on https vs
| insecure http so this comparison is not even in the same
| ballpark.
| zibzab wrote:
| Dude, you are completely missing the point.
|
| All I am saying is that replacing a simple and well
| tested system with a complex and barely evaluated system
| is bad for security.
|
| And for the record, ALMOST ALL recent high profile hacks
| were related to WhatsApp.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> All I am saying is that replacing a simple and well
| tested system with a complex and barely evaluated system
| is bad for security._
|
| 1) Nobody is replacing MMS with WhatApp for you, you are
| free to use whatever alternative fits your needs best.
|
| 2) A system which almost nobody used because it was
| expensive to use in the beginning, insecure by today's
| standards, and doesn't serve the present day needs of
| consumers making it severely outdated, which is why phone
| users migrated in droves to alternatives like WhatsApp
| many years ago.
|
| If carriers and the 3GPP consortium wanted to keep MMS
| relevant, then they should have updated it to support
| encryption and higher definition multi-media, and
| carriers shouldn't have charged through the nose for the
| service, but the SW industry disrupted the telecom
| industry with much higher quality messaging apps that
| were also free, which deprecated carriers to be just dumb
| data pipes and made SMS/MMS mostly obsolete.
|
| _> And for the record, ALMOST ALL recent high profile
| hacks were related to WhatsApp._
|
| That's needlessly exaggerating without posting any
| sources for such grave claims. Which "recent high profile
| whatsapp hacks"?
| mjg59 wrote:
| MMS is a vehicle into your phone's media decoding stack, and
| there have definitely been vulnerabilities demonstrated using
| MMS as the delivery mechanism
| (eg,https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2020/07/mms-
| exploit-p...)
| advisedwang wrote:
| At least one: https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/08/samsung_
| android_patch... (https://bugs.chromium.org/p/project-
| zero/issues/detail?id=20...)
| izacus wrote:
| MMS is also used by Apple iPhone devices when sending group
| messages, images and media to non-Apple users. This
| functionality will now probably break, especially since Apple
| refuses to implement RCS protocol which would make cross-phone
| brand messaging comparable to iMessage itself.
| sbuk wrote:
| > Apple refuses to implement RCS protocol...
|
| And rightfully so. Apple supporting it won't help the folks
| in Switzerland because Swisscom don't support it. And why
| would they? They are clearly simplifying (cost saving) the
| stack. RCS is a poorly designed protocol with little to no
| carrier support outside of the US.
| joenathanone wrote:
| Chicken meet egg.
| sbuk wrote:
| I'd say not. Bad protocol that cost the carriers to use
| and no customer wants to pay for meet commercial reality
| would be more accurate.
| pmontra wrote:
| How about switching to one or more among Telegram, WhatsApp,
| Messenger etc? Basically it's what everybody does in Europe.
| I'm getting SMSes only from banks, credit card companies and
| (sadly) 2FA. MMS, maybe one in the last 20 years because they
| used to be insanely expensive.
| efitz wrote:
| Every group message I have received (100%) via MMS has been
| spam.
| zdragnar wrote:
| When my family communicates via text, it is almost
| exclusively through MMS. YMMV.
| mellowagain wrote:
| This is honestly not a big deal in Switzerland. Almost everyone
| here uses messengers such as WhatsApp or Telegram.
|
| I personally never had any SMS/MMS contact with any person in the
| past two years since I've had my phone.
|
| What people need to understand is that once Swisscom decides
| something, people are going to migrate. Swisscom disabled the 2G
| network at the start of 2021 and people which still had old
| "dumb" phones migrated either over to smart or feature phones,
| which both support messengers such as WhatsApp.
|
| Swisscom realized this and is now getting rid of a feature that
| was practically unused, making their tech stack simpler. Totally
| understandable and most likely not a big loss for anyone except a
| few.
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I'm from Switzerland and don't use WhatsApp because of
| Facebook. So I have to contact with some people just over
| SMS/MMS.
| Notanothertoo wrote:
| Signal
| thisfro wrote:
| Signal or threema are no options for you?
| _trampeltier wrote:
| I have Threema and Signal, but not all other persons. Most
| friends and family are on Threema. On work we use Signal as
| group chat.
| yumraj wrote:
| Had never heard of threema, so had to look it up. Looks
| interesting, a little like ICQ it seems..
|
| Have always wondered if ICQ should make a comeback, so good
| to see something like it exists.
| yumraj wrote:
| I'm in the US and don't use WhatsApp because of Facebook.
|
| I use SMS, Signal and iMessage.
| emsy wrote:
| Fax them a complaint.
| superlupo wrote:
| I think that's a shame. Some of my contacts only have WhatsApp,
| and I am definitely not gonna install that Spyware. So to those,
| I am still sending pictures by MMS.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Hopefully by 2023 the state of RCS will have improved.
| lxgr wrote:
| Honestly, at this point I don't think there is hope for RCS.
|
| And even if there was: I really don't like the idea of an (at
| least somewhat) carrier-controlled messaging service.
| Especially the lack of multi-device messaging/not being able
| to access my account without my phone is really frustrating.
|
| We had all of that with instant messengers in the early 2000s
| (proprietary or open/federated) - RCS seems like a big step
| back in that regard.
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| Except most carrier don't want to implement it -- it will
| need new investment in architecture, new bilateral
| negociation between operator, new routing partners... and
| it's backed by Google, which seems to not reassure anyone.
| zibzab wrote:
| Well, with this move they simply will have to.
|
| Thankfully, it's not driven by Google, just "approved" by
| them. You don't want to use a Google technology for thinga
| you want to continue to exist 4 years from now.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| When you say it's not driven by Google - who exactly is
| pushing carriers to adopt RCS if not Google?
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Many carriers already have. The main issue is that Google
| is steamrolling their own IaaS solution (Jibe) while some
| carriers (like Swisscom for instance) have actually
| implemented Universal Profile on their own, and are now
| left out.
| tssva wrote:
| How are they left out? If they have implemented Universal
| Profile they should be able to interoperate with those
| using Jibe's.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Google seems not interested in interconnected third party
| RCS hubs anymore.
|
| The current situation means that people who are directly
| connected to Google's own Jibe infrastructure can message
| carrier-operated Jibe deployments. But they can't message
| third party RCS networks or vice-versa.
| cmurf wrote:
| What a hilarious way to kill RCS growth beyond where it
| is. Why?
| toast0 wrote:
| > Why?
|
| This is only speculation, but it's Google. You don't get
| promoted for making an existing messenger work, or work
| better. Better to abandon it and join a team making a new
| messenger.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| The people I asked didn't know.
|
| Pure speculation: Google got frustrated with carriers
| moving too slowly even after acquiring Jibe. I understand
| carriers not being compelled by Google's lack of vision
| for mobile messaging then. Especially given that Apple
| won't give a damn.
|
| A few years pass and Google decides to pivot their
| messaging services once again, and that now is the time
| to push RCS for real. Google managed to convince big
| carriers on several continents that Jibe is the solution.
| And they probably think the small ones will eventually
| cave in.
| lxgr wrote:
| This seems like a bad tradeoff, considering that MMS are
| entirely unencrypted and traverse a lot of legacy
| infrastructure.
| merb wrote:
| legacy yes, entirely unencrypted is mostly wrong. mms used
| tls in later revisions (it uses soap in mm7 upwards)
| lota-putty wrote:
| Try email, better privacy than MMS.
|
| I was a MMSC developer over a decade ago, don't ask what most
| of the MMS traffic was.
| kingcharles wrote:
| I know, I know *hugs*
| samkone wrote:
| I want to discontinue Swisscom overall.
| stabbles wrote:
| Sunrise (about 25% market share in Switzerland) sends out MMS
| messages with special offers to their customers on a regular
| basis
| billpg wrote:
| Once the services that charge transaction fees fall away, will
| the various free services that replaced them start charging for
| their service?
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| Never used MMS and apparently it was discontinued in my country
| in 2019.
|
| HN hates WhatsApp but it was disruption with a giant fucking D
| visible from Mars.
| pessimizer wrote:
| HN hates Facebook. WhatsApp was a fantastic service built on a
| fantastic stack by fantastic people.
| muscaw wrote:
| Given SMSs bigger than 160 characters were sent as MMS, I wonder
| what will be the new UX in the SMS app when I reach the character
| limit.
|
| Will my SMS be sent into multiple chunks? Will my system tell me
| it's over the character limit?
| Hamuko wrote:
| I thought that long messages were already chunked.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Yes, they are chunked (multi-part) SMSes, not MMSes.
| brirec wrote:
| >Will my SMS be sent into multiple chunks?
|
| Yes. Actually, it already is. MMS is rarely used now for text-
| only messages, and instead concatenated messages is the norm.
| It does require network and OS support on both ends, however.
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concatenated_SMS
| daneel_w wrote:
| SMS always had multi-part support (sometimes called "long
| SMS"), and that's what's used for sending long texts, not MMS.
| nottorp wrote:
| Does anyone in the whole world use that? I didn't use it before
| internet connected smartphones because the images were crap. Now
| there's really no point in it.
| RedShift1 wrote:
| I didn't use it because at the time where it was useful it was
| freaking expensive to send an MMS.
| jfjrkickkfntk wrote:
| I use it to send and receive pictures all the time. If I'm
| documenting something for a client the I sure as hell won't
| start trying to find the client on social media.
| nottorp wrote:
| > find the client on social media
|
| Whatsapp is social media? I always thought it's a sms/mms
| that works...
| pil0u wrote:
| If you are still sending SMS that are longer than 160
| characters, then you are using MMS behind the scenes.
| shubhamkrm wrote:
| I thought SMS apps just split the text in 160 character
| chunks, and merge them on the receiving side. Isn't that how
| it works?
| nameequalsmain wrote:
| Yup, the parent comment is incorrect. SMS longer than 160
| characters (in GSM 03.38 encoding) are split into multiple
| parts, each a maximum of 153 characters long, 7 characters
| are used to glue the parts together.
| kube-system wrote:
| I believe it depends the implementation. I recall having
| a phone that would explicitly indicate a switch to MMS
| when sending longer messages.
| WhyCause wrote:
| I too recall that. I suspect it was a boon for the
| carriers, eating into your MMS quota. At the time though,
| my plan was unlimited SMS/MMS, so it didn't really matter
| to me.
| boudin wrote:
| It's quite used in France. Technically speaking it has no
| replacement, it's the only system that works natively with any
| phone, doesn't require you to install a dedicated app, create
| an account on a third party and do not push all those
| constraints on the people you're sending messages to.
| nottorp wrote:
| Yeah but the image quality is... ouch. I wouldn't inflict
| that on anyone.
| boudin wrote:
| I'm not saying it's great :D I would love to have a
| replacement which is secured and modern.
| tpush wrote:
| Presumably every time an iOS user in America sends a picture or
| video to an Android person. So, quite a lot I'd wager.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| SMS doesn't do group messaging or messages over 160 characters.
|
| I have a group of friends and we never were able to agree upon
| another chat protocol, so we have a group SMS chat that
| exchanges a a few hundred messages a week; it stared around
| COVID as we weren't getting together in person.
|
| Anyone who wants to send a message where one of these is true
| must either use MMS, _or_ convince everyone to sign up for some
| other messaging service if the people involved are not all
| either on an iPhone or Android:
|
| - Includes a picture - Includes a contact - Longer than 160
| characters - More than one recipient
| disiplus wrote:
| i used it to send images when the other person did not have
| whatsapp.
| andybak wrote:
| I use it for all the people I know where we don't share a
| common proprietary messanging app. I have friends that refuse
| to use Facebook so don't have WhatsApp. I have friends who are
| devoted to Apple and don't have anything other than iMessage. I
| have relations who don't have anything other than the built-in
| SMS app.
|
| I sometimes need to send these people photos of something.
| odiroot wrote:
| T-Mobile in Poland uses it so send ads.
| DanTheManPR wrote:
| I use it every day with my family and friends. We're not all on
| the same messaging platforms, but we can always reliably send
| MMS messages for pics on group chats.
| Pasorrijer wrote:
| Still quite used in Canada, but I think we also had one of the
| highest penetration rates of SMS/MMS to begin with.
|
| That being said, were it shut off I'd just use one of the other
| five messaging services on my phone...
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Yes. I send photos over text messages sometimes. could be
| memes, could be snapshots. It's surprising to me that others
| think it is unheard of!
|
| I wonder if this is an issue of different parts of the world?
| I'm in USA, where my SMS/MMS traffic is unmetered and included
| in my phone plan unlimited. You?
|
| Additionally, MMS is used for group text messages.
|
| *update* 20 minutes after I posted this, I received an MMS
| message with a picture of a cat. So.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I use MMS regularly for communicating with people who don't
| have Telegram. Granted most of that is regular old SMS, but MMS
| capabilities (e.g. low res photos) are expected and used often
| enough that they will be missed.
| robin_reala wrote:
| I use it to send photos to Android-using friends and family,
| mostly because it means I can stay in a single messaging app
| (iMessage). MMS is unlimited on my plan.
| nextstep wrote:
| >Using a messenger app
|
| >Download the app from the App Store (iPhone) or Google Play
| Store (Android phone) and register as advised.
|
| >Threema
|
| >Signal
|
| >TeleGuard
|
| >The most popular messenger app in Switzerland and worldwide is
| WhatsApp. However, we do not recommend WhatsApp or Telegram for
| security reasons (problematic encryption and non-transparent data
| protection guidelines).
|
| Well done, Swisscom!
| Animats wrote:
| That's annoying. The basic SMS app on Android will convert long
| messages to MMS.
|
| It's good to have a message service which has no ads, no charges,
| no signup, and no EULA. It's provided entirely by a regulated
| telecom regulator. No nonsense.
| extropy wrote:
| Swisscom launched RCS a year ago. That is the next gen beyond
| MMS.
|
| Also no sign up, no extra costs, handled by the carrier, needs
| a data plan though.
| wistlo wrote:
| Animats wrote:
| Is there an RCS client for Android that doesn't involve a
| connection to Google or a Google account?
| fetzu wrote:
| I had never heard of the third app they suggest as a replacement
| (Teleguard), which is apparently also a Swiss product.
|
| Looking at their Privacy Policy[1], they make a suspiciously
| claim to not log anything. Not even payment information (whatever
| that means). Which makes me wonder how they combat fraud, spam
| and fake accounts. And, ultimately, the product being closed-
| source I guess you will just have to trust their claims.. just
| like WhatsApp and Telegram that Swisscom advises against for that
| same reason.[2]
|
| [1] https://teleguard.com/en/privacy
|
| [2] Actually, some parts of Telegram's code is open source.
| Although it's only the clients so the point about trust stands.
| kimi wrote:
| Not sure anybody ever used those. At -like- chf 1 a pop, they
| paved the way for WhatsApp to eat mobile telecom's lunch.
| poizan42 wrote:
| Is it still like that in Switzerland? Here in Denmark I'd be
| hard pressed to find a plan without both free SMS and MMS, at
| least domestically.
| pph wrote:
| In Germany you'll still pay 0.39EUR / MMS even in otherwise
| unlimited-everything contracts. Needless to say it never was
| used widely. Personally I've only sent them very rarely and
| in almost all cases out of a misguided automated conversion,
| which I was never happy about.
| poizan42 wrote:
| It's weird how big the difference can be just across our
| border to the south, I wonder what sort of market forces
| that have caused this. It's not as if SMS/MMS services
| actually costs the telcos anything beyond the small amount
| of data in the messages.
|
| I guess it does explain why people use apps like Telegram
| and WhatsApp while their usage is close to non-existent
| here.
| zokier wrote:
| In finland my plan has sms priced at 0.07e and mms at 0.40e.
| Unsurprisingly I've probably sent only a handful of mms in my
| lifetime.
| marcus_cemes wrote:
| MMS was terrible, however people are fine paying 70 CHF/month
| for unlimited mobile internet nowadays. I find this ridiculous,
| personally I'm trying to condition myself to only use the 100MB
| of free monthly data, stricly messaging only. It's a challenge.
| m_mueller wrote:
| there are various providers of unlimited data at around 30
| CHF/month. I have yallo for 29. was some kinda lifetime
| rebate program.
| Leherenn wrote:
| You can rather easily get "unlimited" (as far as I know,
| pretty much every operator caps at 40 GB/month) internet (in
| Switzerland only) for 20 CHF/month nowadays.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| Except for very cheap MVNOs, no, there should be no cap
| with unlimited plans. You'll obviously suffer a bit from
| the QoS/prioritization but I know several people having no
| issues with unlimited 4G/5G from Salt, Yallo or Wingo.
| Leherenn wrote:
| Both my previous Yallo and my current Salt plans were
| unlimited, but restricted to 40GB before throttling in
| the terms and conditions. Maybe it has changed? (It's
| very hard to find detailed terms and conditions when
| looking at new contracts.)
| hocuspocus wrote:
| I'm fairly certain Salt never enforced any throttling in
| practice, though it might be in the ToS?
|
| Recent deals from Yallo mention throttling when roaming,
| but not in Switzerland where unlimited is really
| unlimited.
| tonfa wrote:
| Or even a lot less if you're waiting for the special
| offers.
|
| I have sunrise unlimited internet for 5 CHF/month (10 CHF
| without discount). Includes like 500 MB for roaming per
| month as well.
| sschueller wrote:
| Yes, it's quite messed up. I pay CHF 80 / month (USD ~86) for
| cell phone service while at the same time I can get 25gbit
| synchronous fiber internet for CHF 64.75 / month (USD ~70).
| hocuspocus wrote:
| For 80 CHF (60 if you're an inOne customer) you get a very
| high-end plan with extensive data roaming (40GB in a lot of
| countries) and international calls. Most people don't need
| that.
| marcyb5st wrote:
| If you can do that kudos to you. Just yesterday I got a video
| on WA that was around 30MB and it was downloaded
| automatically. When you are in roaming WA is smart enough to
| not download it unless you click on it, but when you have a
| data connection in your home country you have no say (to the
| best of my knowledge).
| debugnik wrote:
| There are settings to not download media files
| automatically even on WiFi. To download you click on it
| first, and you get to see how large the file is beforehand.
| [deleted]
| Spare_account wrote:
| Here are the instructions on how to change that:
| https://faq.whatsapp.com/android/chats/configuring-auto-
| down...
|
| The formatting is messed up for me, so here's an third
| party alternative:
|
| https://drfone.wondershare.com/whatsapp/how-to-stop-auto-
| dow...
| marcyb5st wrote:
| Thanks!!!
| CalRobert wrote:
| So weird, I pay 13 eur a month for unlimited data...
| kasper_kerem wrote:
| what about USSD and WAP? - sorry, had to ask :D
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| One data point. I'm an American that has been traveling since
| late 2019, primarily in Europe and Latin America. I almost always
| get a local SIM in pick-a-country. The only thing I use SMS for
| is paying for parking, 2FA, and texting friends in America.
| Almost everything else is WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook
| Messenger. On occasion I bump into someone who prefers Telegram.
| Maxburn wrote:
| I'm flabbergasted. This is going to royally mess up any android
| user trying to text an iphone user. Are they maybe trying to push
| apple to adopt RCS? I think we are still a good ways away from
| RCS working everywhere.
| netsharc wrote:
| Most people in Europe use WhatsApp anyway...
| _trampeltier wrote:
| A lot yes, but far from all.
| izacus wrote:
| It really doesn't.
|
| (I also fail to understand how giving ownership to Facebook
| for all messaging is somehow an improvement in Europe.)
| Maxburn wrote:
| Maybe they took facebook money in order to drop support for
| MMS? Drive business to facebook. Profit!
| netsharc wrote:
| Hmm, I really don't think MMS is widely used in
| Switzerland. If Bob has an Android and wants to talk to
| Alice the iPhone user, Bob is not going to be SMS-
| ing/MMS-ing Alice, Bob will write Alice on WhatsApp (or
| Telegram, or Signal, the great WhatsApp-agree-to-our-new-
| EULA exodus also happened in Europe), which Alice will
| almost certainly have. Apple has no iMessage-moat in
| Europe.
|
| If you want to measure my certainty: I would bet 1000
| Swiss Francs that if you went to the center of Zurich and
| asked 50 random people who have smartphones if they had
| one of WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram/Threema, they'd say yes.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Nobody I know with an iPhone uses signal or WhatsApp.
| They just use iMessage. I'm constantly bugging my iPhone-
| owning family and friends to install Signal. Nobody
| cares.
|
| There's a reason the blue / green iMessage bubbles are
| such a hot topic among the youths these days. It's not
| because everybody uses 3rd party messengers.
| bonzini wrote:
| In America or Europe?
| Arainach wrote:
| And yet if you asked if they had _all_ of them, almost no
| one would say so. I have friends who have quit Facebook,
| I have friends fully dedicated to the Apple ecosystem, I
| have one or two privacy-focused ones who use Signal, and
| no protocol other than MMS that can talk to all of them.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Sure ... but it shapes with your circle of friends. Pick
| any two of the three, and you will reach virtually
| anyone. And pure luddites? Well, they don't have
| smartphones, usually.
| helmholtz wrote:
| It doesn't matter if they don't have all of them. They
| make their choice. I have whatsapp, but have managed to
| convince a core group of friends to use Signal. We make
| do.
| pmontra wrote:
| Ideally SMS first and then MMS would be free secure
| protocols with nice to use tools and no cost to use and
| everybody would use them. However they are not and most
| Europeans left SMS in the 2000s for instant messaging
| because of costs. Then we settled to either WhatsApp or
| Messenger or a combination of them according to the groups
| of people we meet with. Telegram is particularly good for
| large groups and is used especially by young or technical
| people. Any other IM is a rounding error. That FB owns both
| the major IMs is very unfortunate but people already voted
| with their apps.
| ProAm wrote:
| Except that RCS is another DOA google product. Im not sure what
| they are thinking here. What if someone in Switzerland wants to
| contact someone in a different country that doesnt user
| Whatsapp or Telegram?
| lxgr wrote:
| Almost nobody in Europe uses SMS anymore (for person-to-person
| messaging, at least; it's still quite common for B2C,
| especially for two factor authentication). MMS was never
| popular in the first place.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Before dismissing MMS/SMS, consider it has an option for paid
| rich text messages and other media with carrier billing. Was used
| in the 90s for ringtones/backgrounds and such, but could be used
| for collecting subscriptions (mags, newsletters, literature). Of
| course, FAANG killed it (not least Google themselves with the
| convenient Stagefreight bug on Android), but I think we shouldn't
| sing FAANG's song here when the alternatives are closed,
| feudalistic ecosystems designed for ads such as FB's and
| Google's, or Apple's.
| tpush wrote:
| I'd rather be in a closed, "feudalistic" ecosystem of Apple or
| Google than deal with any carrier.
| can16358p wrote:
| Same here. Not fan of Apple or Facebook as a company, but
| would definitely take their offer over anything that is
| plaintext and carrier-controlled.
|
| At least with iMessage or Messenger we have a way of sending
| encrypted messages of almost any format. (Clarification: not
| necessarily E2EE but at least encrypted to a non-carrier
| company)
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'd rather not have messaging capabilities than expose my
| metadata to Facebook. MMS is great for communicating with
| people for whom "message" and "Whatsapp" are near-synonyms.
| usr1106 wrote:
| From a non-US perspective: At least carriers are not US quasi
| monopolies. They do often obey local laws. (see today's
| Google analytic submission on HN if you don't know what I
| mean)
|
| And they provide interoperability. If my aunt uses another
| carrier than me I can still reach her.
|
| Of course carriers in the US are worse than elsewhere, so
| some people might have a stronger point like yours. I am in
| the lucky situation that e.g. SIM locking is illegal here.
| can16358p wrote:
| Was there any country that MMS ever took off and was actually
| used in practice, beyond proof of concept?
| mastercheif wrote:
| MMS was popular enough in the US that when Apple added MMS
| support in iPhoneOS 3.0, at&t delayed supporting it for iPhone
| users based on fears that it would bog down their cellular data
| infrastructure.
| tssva wrote:
| The US where it is currently still widely used.
| daneel_w wrote:
| It saw pretty common usage in Sweden, and I'm convinced we
| weren't alone. The advent of iMessage, smartphones and mobile
| data traffic changed a lot.
| tasha0663 wrote:
| I have 21 unread messages for today in the "Family Text" which
| is a sprawling MMS conversation with relatives where not
| everyone gets the image others are talking about, and the
| messages don't always arrive in sequence if at all.
|
| We should really be doing this another way, so yes, please kill
| MMS.
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| At the low end of the spectrum ($10/month prepaid), at least in
| Canada, unlimited international SMS/MMS is part of the menu. It's
| gone from an overpriced premium feature to all the way down to
| the baseline.
|
| At about half a megabyte of payload, it works very well to send
| photos, voice clips, even videos (10-15 seconds, or the quality
| degrades too much), also contact cards.
|
| These days you have to actively resist Google upgrading you to
| their enhanced messenger app; once you have that picture messages
| will be sent using normal mobile data.
|
| It is a little known legacy feature even here. I find that about
| 80% of random phones have it provisioned correctly; for the rest
| it can be manually done by fiddling with the APN settings but
| virtually nobody knows how to do that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The problem is that the carriers are in control of it and you
| never know what you're going to get at the end, if anything.
| The media may get recompressed several times along the way. The
| infrastructure involved is also ancient and poorly maintained,
| lots of "unknown unknowns" that can cause trouble.
| password4321 wrote:
| Pardon my ignorance, but is there any app/client/software
| that takes the interference out of the equation by encrypting
| (or at least encoding) the content in transit?
|
| Doing so would be possible over vanilla SMS as well, I guess.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It could technically work, but then there's a chance that
| if your file (which is no longer JPEG) can't be parsed by
| the carrier's infrastructure it will simply reject it (or
| worse - crash it), so your encrypted file still needs to
| look like a valid image, but then your encoding scheme
| should be robust enough to survive being recompressed
| multiple times.
| Denatonium wrote:
| This depends greatly on the carriers involved. At least
| with Verizon (in USA), simply having a PNG header and
| extension is enough for a file to be classified as an
| image. If the "image" is 1MB or less, the image doesn't
| get reencoded.
|
| I took advantage of this back in the day (when I had a
| severely limited data plan and unlimited texting), by
| writing a script for my computer that would take a large
| file, split it into 1MB chunks, prepend a 1x1px PNG image
| to the chunks, and send them to my number through the
| email-to-MMS gateway sequentially. Then on my phone, I
| wrote a script that would remove the PNG headers and
| concatenate the chunks, giving me the original file.
|
| My workflow consisted of SSH-ing into my PC from my
| phone, initiating a download, and then running the
| downloaded file through my scripts. By doing this, I
| could send up to 500MB per day to my phone without using
| any data.
| afiori wrote:
| originally signal worked like this
| Yetino wrote:
| It feels counterintuitive that the competition from WhatsApp,
| iMessage, etc, never managed to bring down the price of MMS. Any
| ideas?
| denysvitali wrote:
| This would be interesting for the blue / green bubble debate.
| When you send an emoji, you send an MMS...
| markus92 wrote:
| Is that a thing in Swiss? Thought it was all Whatsapp/Telegram
| there.
| marcus_cemes wrote:
| I just learnt of the blue/green debate recently from a MKBHD
| video. WhatsApp is suprisingly prevalient here.
| exikyut wrote:
| Really?
|
| I accidentally configured Windows Phone to use ASCII instead of
| UTF-8 for SMS a while back then the first time I tried to send
| emoji the phone chucked a wobbly and told me it wouldn't send
| due to a character set error. Once that was fixed everything
| worked fine, and I don't get the indication I'm sending MMS.
| endofreach wrote:
| Why do you send a MMS when sending an emoji? That doesn't make
| sense to me...
| brirec wrote:
| To my knowledge you don't. But SMS messages natively only use
| 7-bit ASCII. Sending emojis requires both carrier and
| device/OS support, because it's impossible to represent an
| emoji using pure 7-bit ASCII.
|
| As an aside, Unicode SMS messages fit far fewer characters
| per message (around 70 as opposed to 160), so most mobile
| devices still default to 7-bit ASCII unless the message can't
| be represented as such.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Anytime you send something in utf-8 you send an mms if my
| memory is correct. SMS only works with ASCII and thus english
| language.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that I was sending Hebrew SMS messages
| before I had an MMS-capable device or service. Circa 2001
| or so.
| kalleboo wrote:
| SMS natively supports three encoding schemes: 7-bit GSM
| (English+Nordic+Uppercase Greek), 8-bit national encodings,
| and Unicode UCS-2 (although modern devices use UTF-16 in
| the UCS-2 mode)
| darkwater wrote:
| That's just a USA thing, rest of the world use 3rd party
| platforms to chat.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Please don't assume that wherever you live is the same as the
| rest of the world. SMS messages are not exactly unusual in
| Switzerland, and I've had at least a few friends prefer them
| in most every other country I've been as well. Naturally, MMS
| are somewhat less common due to WhatsApp's convenience for
| group and media messages, but conventional text messaging is
| almost mandatory for many 2FA services such as the vaccine
| portals in some cantons, banking, etc.
|
| For instance, SMS seems to be preferred for online selling
| platforms in which only a phone number is exchanged. It's
| strange to add a stranger to your contacts for a one-time
| transaction, so I've often been contacted by SMS or email.
| fnomnom wrote:
| the main online selling plattform in germany (ebay-
| kleinanzeigen) has a messenger integrated that everybody
| just uses for this reason. almost everyything else happens
| in whatsapp. yes youhave some people on
| signal/threema/telegram but virtually everybody has
| whatsapp.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Yep, some Swiss platforms have a similar messaging system
| but others (e.g. Ricardo.ch, probably the most popular?)
| just offer contact information instead.
|
| It might also help that it's increasingly common to pay
| over the TWINT mobile payment system created by Swiss
| banks for which mobile numbers remain the primary
| identification method for private users, not to mention
| SMS messages used for transaction confirmations or login
| codes. Given the default option of a phone number for
| many of these private sales, an SMS is probably more
| straightforward than adding a new contact to use another
| app.
| andybak wrote:
| I think GP was talking about the ubuiquity of iMessage as a
| "US-only thing".
| vinay427 wrote:
| Right, I assumed that was the main intent but was
| responding more to the specific claim that "rest of the
| world use 3rd party platforms to chat."
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