On 2022-05-28 18:32, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 28/05/2022 à 17:54, Patrick Shanahan a écrit :

...

nothing is free (of charge) but hidden within (THE plan).  but yes, sms does not incur *additional* charges on most accounts now, but did in the past.

still do :-(

I can phone for free to my LA living daugther, but If I send her a SMS, I'm charged :-(, whats'app, messenger are free :-(

Look up RCS. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services> «*Rich Communication Services* From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Rich Communication Services (RCS)[1] is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling (for service discovery), and can transmit in-call multimedia. It is part of the broader IP Multimedia Subsystem. Google added support for end-to-end encryption for one-on-one conversations in their own extension.[2] It is also marketed as Advanced Messaging,[3] Chat, joyn, SMSoIP,[4] Message+, and SMS+.[5] In early 2020, it was estimated that RCS was available from 88 operators in 59 countries with approximately 390 million users per month.[6]» If both phones have it (uses the same SMS default app), SMS messages then use the internet network instead of the original and expensive phone provider data services used for SMS. In my phone, if I start to type and there is a tiny "sms" text by the button arrow to "send", that indicates that the message will have a cost according to the phone provider. If there is nothing (and the box is probably coloured in blue), then the message will use internet (can be WiFi) and is zero cost, even if sending photos, except whatever your internet connection costs you. There is also a competing service/app from google named "chat". I still do not have clear what this is. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from Elesar, using openSUSE Leap 15.3)