I found this apparent independent research between some leading mobile instant messenger services, I imagine from the perspective of a potential MXit business partner in South Africa. At least, that’s what it says on the discussion thread.
It reports that a message overhead – that is, the code required to be sent with your instant message when you send/receive it – is 2kb on Mig 33, whilst it’s 0.1kb on MXit.
It goes on to show that standing still, the idle data consumption of Mig 33 is apparently 220mb per month. Butter me in honey and call me Susan! If you were using Mig 33 on Vodafone, that would cost you £517 a month. MXit would cost you about £1.60 a month. What a difference.
There’s then a comparison of the number of SMS-type messages (e.g. 160 chrs) that can be sent in 1 meg of data. Mig 33? 474 messages. Fair enough. MXit? 3,938 messages. Geez.
I’ve managed to connect with MXit top man, Herman Heunis — so I hope to have a Q&A interview to publish soon.
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