But it adds integration with iMessage, Apple's worldwide text and multimedia messaging service that bypasses mobile carriers' text fees.
But that means that carriers' text messaging plans are the communications equivalent of payday check cashing and loan services, subprime loans, rent-to-own stores and the countless other schemes designed to fleece the poor by taking advantage of their lack of working capital.
As Mr. Bannister says, "Hubble is by no means a cheap mission," and yet by his math, it still looks like a bargain compared with commercial carriers' text-message prices.
Noted global expert on mobile telecom, Tomi Ahonen has written that, for carriers, texting is "the most profitable mass market service in the economic history of mankind…with a profit margin [that] is north of 98%." Oh, and by the way, in the second quarter of 2010, T- Mobile USA reported service revenues of $4.70 billion up from $4.63 billion in the first quarter of 2010.
Legal experts said Verizon's position is probably correct under current law, though some called for regulations that would require wireless carriers of text messages to act like common carriers, making their services available to all speakers on all topics.
The carriers' current text and multimedia messaging users are surely people who haven't bothered to seek out alternatives - or else who've forgotten to remove messaging from their bucket of services.
Imagine, Kyle said, if after selling a customer a new phone, all the wireless carriers sent text messages afterward offering discounts on the monthly bill and a free, downloadable mailing label to return the old one.
That is, traditional carrier-controlled text messages.
One bright spot for carriers: traditional text messaging (SMS) remains a highly popular way of communicating for youngsters, especially those aged 12-15.
Twilio stormed into the telecoms market several years ago with a set of services that turned core communications features once controlled by carriers, like text messages and phones numbers, into API-based services that any developer could easily customize and use in whatever app or site she or he chose.
