
Announcing Free Incoming SMS For All - bevenky
https://www.plivo.com/blog/plivo-announces-free-incoming-sms-in-all-20-countries/
======
_nedR
The amount of abuse that the American consumer takes from telecos - Incoming
SMS charges, incoming call charges, ridiculous post-paid rates, the colour of
your iPhone tied to your carrier contract - beggars belief. You guys are still
living under the delusion that the invisible hand of the free market will
protect you, but what you don't realize is that the invisible hand is too busy
in the pants of AT&T and Verizon to care about you.

There are a lot of things wrong with India but the telecom industry here(at
least up to around 2010) should be a showcase for regulation done right. Dirt
cheap sms rates(around .001 usd), 3G rates, fixed monthly subscription charge
for roaming, tower-sharing (multiple mobile operators share a cellular tower),
number-porting, second-pulse billing,and around 10-11 operators to choose
from.

Sure, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India probably squeezed a little to
hard and the 2G and 3G corruption scandals that followed reversed some of
those trends to an extent; But the situation is still much better than in the
US.

~~~
rogerbinns
Don't forget the SMS spam :-)

It is also a market where dual SIM phones are useful. Carriers are running
promotions all the time, so consumers pick which SIM is offering the better
deal on a call by call basis.

Incoming call charges do make sense in the US and aren't as evil as everyone
believes:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8075829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8075829)

------
instakill
I've always found it peculiar that Americans have to pay to receive SMS's or
incoming calls.

~~~
rogerbinns
There are very good reasons (for calls anyway), and arguably the rest of the
world is broken. I wrote about it here [http://www.rogerbinns.com/blog/paying-
for-incoming-calls.htm...](http://www.rogerbinns.com/blog/paying-for-incoming-
calls.html)

In short it is to with termination rates, area codes, and how people in the
rest of the world get screwed but don't realise it.

~~~
Someone1234
In the UK if it starts with 07 it is to a mobile and if it starts with 01-03
it is to a landline. How very complicated!

Plus doesn't the US have hidden rates too? If I call someone on a landline and
they're in the same city I pay less than if I call someone two cities over
even though the two MIGHT have the same exact area code ("long distance").

> Cellular was easily rolled out without disruption. An existing number could
> switch to cellular and no one else would have to know or care. If you were a
> business (eg a plumber) you didn't have to worry about people calling you
> fretting over getting charged more for the call than your competitors.

> Numbers are easily portable. You can switch any number to use cellular.
> Countries using the other scheme can have portability but usually it is
> limited to cellular area codes only.

That's a non-issue. Call forwarding exists outside the US too(!). You can buy
generic numbers, or a landline that forwards to your cellphone (or rings at
both).

But ultimately your entire argument is defeated by one fact: In the US when a
telemarketer calls you YOU pay for the pleasure. You're literally paying for
people to spam or hassle you.

~~~
MichaelGG
The US is FULL of hidden rates! In fact, you can make a huge killing
exploiting these things, and a lot people do exactly that. Some areas in the
US cost multiple cents per minute. There is no such such as a flat rate to the
US. People sell it, but they're just hoping you call cheap places, and if you
don't, they cut you off. It surprises me how few people can do that math and
love paying a flat rate.

That's why so many free conference call places were in Iowa. They were
exploiting the 5 cent tariffs Iowa had published in combination with people
expecting all of the US to cost the same. Big carriers stopped terminating the
calls, but the FCC slapped them back and insisted they had to terminate such
calls.

~~~
rogerbinns
This is called traffic pumping. Wikipedia has the details
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_pumping)

------
strick
I think the tabbed navigation on:
[https://www.plivo.com/pricing/](https://www.plivo.com/pricing/) is going to
confuse some users. Some people will never see the SMS pricing even though
they are looking for it. Banner blindness is a real problem and applies not
only to ads but to navigational stuff as well.

~~~
liquidise
Just happened to me, in fact.

------
autarchprinceps
Paying for incoming anything is completly ridiculous. Thankfully that's
unusual here in Europe.

~~~
rogerbinns
Do explain how you get screwed on mobile termination rates! Mobile phone calls
are considerably more expensive in Europe per minute, but you as a recipient
may not realise it. See my comment that points to a post with more details
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8075829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8075829)

~~~
stephenr
This just sounds like typical "America is the best".

Yes, in every other country, the person making the call has to pay (unless its
specifically a free call service).

How does it make sense that someone can call/text you and it costs YOU money?

The supposed "difficulty" in understanding call rates to me sounds like the
same "difficulty" that keeps you lot off the metric system.

But sure, keep telling us how the rest of the world is wrong - it doesn't make
you look self obsessed at all.

~~~
rogerbinns
BTW I am a Brit and think the US is dysfunctional in _many_ ways.

What you are paying for is not the incoming call getting to your carrier, but
for your carrier to then connect to your phone using radio (or whatever). Same
for outgoing calls. To flip it around, when I call YOUR number, why should it
be relevant to me how YOU choose connect to the phone network? Why should I
care if you use cell, satellite, machines in the exchange, a piece of string,
copper or whatever else comes along in the future?

If the US wanted to use separate area codes for mobile then it could only
practically be done by making the area codes longer. This would be a _massive_
disruption. What solution would you propose?

Are you seriously saying that people should understand at least 36 different
random unrelated area codes to cost more? And that people who can't do that
are inferior and just being difficult? Because in other countries they did
things like make mobile area codes always start with 7 - ie only one rule to
remember.

As for metric, yes I agree the US is dysfunctional there too. As is Britain
which still hasn't adopted it for the roads. But I do have a proposed
solution: [http://www.rogerbinns.com/blog/gplus/i-finally-have-a-
soluti...](http://www.rogerbinns.com/blog/gplus/i-finally-have-a-solution-for-
the-number.html)

~~~
jameshart
Well as a Brit you should know how you make more room in the phonenumber
space: awkwardly, slowly, in a series of steps, and with a huge amount of
disruption. But a few years later everyone's forgotten about it.

This is in spite of the fact that in order to get from where we were to begin
with - with '01' as the area code for London, for example - to where we are
today, peoples' numbers went first through the 071/081 split, then through the
'add 1' 0171/0181 era after phONE day, and then finally moved over to the
0207/0208 codes, as a foundation ultimately for London having an 020 area
code.

~~~
rogerbinns
In Britain it was relatively easy as there was only one phone company, plus
the one in Hull. Britain already had variable length area codes and numbers,
so it wasn't as disruptive. (I was very amused to find one place where the
area code was longer than the number!)

The US & Canada had far more companies, plus NANPA 3/7 format being hard coded
_everywhere_ \- forms, computer programs etc. Trying to implement changes to
phone number length will make y2k efforts look trivial.

Heck when places started requiring the dialling of area codes because "local"
areas especially big cities had more than one, was disruptive enough. That
started happening in the mid-nineties.

Given the choice between huge disruption, or termination fees being the same
and the costs of connecting between the phone company and the person
making/receiving the calls being their business, the latter isn't an
unreasonable choice. When I call you, why should it be relevant to me if you
are connected to your choice of carrier by a piece of copper, fibre, radio
waves or whatever else?

~~~
stephenr
I remember when Australia extended all phone numbers to be standard 10 digits
(from either 8 or 9 digits previously, depending on area) - I was 11 when it
started, and somehow I managed to work it out and still use the phone.

If you're telling me the "greatest country in the world" can't transition to a
sensible numbering system because it's "too hard" I will simply point you once
again to the various other things Americans are hilariously and depressingly
behind the rest of the world on... anything related to measurements, banking,
healthcare, politics, comes to mind.

> why should it be relevant to me if you are connected to your choice of
> carrier by a piece of copper, fibre, radio waves or whatever else

because as someone else in the threaded highlighted, it can be abused
(especially in the case of SMS which don't require you to 'pick up' to bill
you) to a ridiculous level.

~~~
rogerbinns
But see Australia was already starting with variable length numbers. NANPA
started in the late forties. It is obviously possible to change things, but
would require extraordinary effort. For example every computer program knew
that NANPA numbers were exactly 10 digits since every program was written
after NANPA came about. Having to change all of them would make y2k look
trivial!

Something being missed is that callers are still charged to reach your phone
company at the base rates - that is not free to them. You then pay your phone
company extra for how you connect to them. Abuse is a red herring. When I go
to other countries and get a local SIM I get inundated with SMS, which doesn't
cost money but sure does cost a huge annoyance. SMS spam is very rare in the
US, with the carriers cooperating to stamp it out and always refunding people
for any.

~~~
stephenr
> SMS spam is very rare in the US

The only sms "spam" I have seen.. I think ever, having had a mobile phone in
Australia for ~13 years and now Thailand for about 2 years, is messages from
the network operator (and its sister companies), here in Thailand. In
Australia I don't remember ever getting "spam".

My point was not about "professional" spam, it was about the potential for
personal abuse. Someone posted in the thread earlier about racking up $~200 of
sms charges against a friend's ex girlfriend.

~~~
rogerbinns
And that ex-girlfriend would have been able to get the charges reversed plus
legal recourses. It is considerably easier to do that when you show you
incurred real costs, versus when receiving them is "free". The phone calls to
your carrier customer service cost them money too so they are keen to reduce
those.

Try India sometime for SMS spam.

------
bambax
> _So without further adieu_

You mean _ado_ , which is an English word that means "difficulties, trouble,
delay"; _adieu_ is a French word for "goodbye".

~~~
haakon
One could be charitable and take this as a Futurama quote. Zapp Brannigan did
say "without further adieu" (episode 1ACV10).

------
radiodario
wait what you have pay for incoming SMSs in the US? what if you are being
spammed? that is crazy.

~~~
mikestew
Yup, that you do, and crazy it is. What you're supposed to do is get the
unlimited text plan so that it doesn't matter. If you don't use SMS enough to
justify the $20/month for unlimited, too bad for you (at least for AT&T I'm
pretty sure it's unlimited or $0.25/text these days, with nothing in between).
Or just do what I did and switch to T-Mobile.

~~~
shurcooL
Or do what I did and switch to a data-only plan. I like having my mobile
provider be nothing more than a dumb pipe.

~~~
klipt
How do you make calls? I used to use Talkatone with Google Voice but the api
they used was discontinued.

~~~
dublinben
You could use a paid VOIP provider like Voip.ms and make calls over your data
connection. It's the same concept, except you're paying $0.01/minute instead
of nothing.

------
pcl
A number of comments express surprise that US carriers charge for inbound SMS
traffic. Note that this announcement is with regards to an SMS gateway
service, not regular end-user SMS traffic.

------
sologoub
Any plans to offer SMS on TFNs in US (like Twilio has)?

------
free2rhyme214
I know a more experienced engineer. He told me when engineers first invented
texting to communicate with each other it's essentially free for telecom
companies so yes we Americans are overpaying like crazy for texting.

~~~
sjtgraham
> essentially free

The marginal cost per message is essentially free. The costs of building,
operating and maintaining telco infrastructure are unfortunately not.

------
bevenky
This is applicable even for our existing countries - US, Canada & UK!

------
codenut
Wait what? We have for free since ages.

------
hughes
This sounds great! Here's hoping twilio/nexmo/etc will match.

~~~
0172
I think Nexmo had free incoming sms for years. You only pay for the virtual
number.

~~~
katiebug321
Inbound messaging is always free with Nexmo- talk to me about it at
katie.sullivan@nexmo.com

------
cjoh
They still charge 10x what Twilio does to send text messages.

~~~
sjtgraham
False

Twilio $0.0075 Plivo 0.65¢

Notice the unit of account. Twilio absurdly uses $ while Plivo more sensibly
uses ¢, I can't think of any other reason for this than to make it difficult
to compare prices and encourage customers to fall into the trap you just did.

Prices normalised:

Twilio 0.75¢ Plivo 0.65¢

~~~
nknighthb
> _more sensibly_

Really?

When I'm setting a budget, it's going to be in dollars. If I'm getting prices
in cents, I have to remember to convert, or I'm going to make the same mistake
your parent comment did.

The currency is dollars, not cents. Most prices are set in dollars, not cents.
Most transactions are performed in dollars, not cents. Budgeting is done in
dollars, not cents.

Save trouble and use the same units everybody else does.

~~~
rohit6223
Who is "everybody"? and what unit do they use?

------
B5geek
I get Y-combinators' roots and purpose, but blatant advertising on HN is
annoying and off-putting.

And this example is vastly different then the "Hey look at the cool thing I
made! p.s. I am selling it too."

~~~
pessimizer
You're against an advertising-supported internet? If so, there are places
where you could start your protest that excute that a lot less transparently
and with a few less orders of magnitude of vetting than here. Unless you
prefer 'herbal Cialis' ads:)

