... and not surprisingly, the mobile phone market in Oz is different again!

Contracts are very popular here, mostly because that's what the companies push the most. The advantage for the end-user is the new phone, but the companies like it for the lock-in and that they shift new phones. However, the carriers like to quietly reward people who've fallen off the end of the contract and now pay a mere monthly bill by offering a slight discount for staying with them for a time - sort of like a pseudo-contract. I guess the churn of customers switching carriers all the time is unattractive to them! :-)

SMS, though, is fairly popular, but I don't really know how much. I have a friend who uses it quite frequently and often as a replacement for email. OTOH, many people only really know about them when they get voicemail (the service sends an SMS when you have voicemail waiting) and have no idea to send their own!

SMS messages are almost always 20c a message but there are ways to get them free. Optus (one of our carriers), for instance, has some clever schemes that let you send a number for free in a month, but you do have to send a lot for it to be worth it.

Wade.