American adults still prefer communicating by voice over sending and receiving text messages according to a recent survey conducted by The Pew Research Center. Pew surveyed 2,277 Americans ages 18 and older between April 26th and May 22nd of this year, and found that nearly three-quarters of them send and receive text messages. Despite the increased popularity of text messaging among adults in the U.S., however, only 31% prefer messaging to voice calls. More than half — 53% — said voice calling was their ...

In an email correspondence with blog Phone Scoop earlier today, Sprint confirmed that it too would provide its customers with free calling and text messaging to Japanese phone lines. The news comes just hours after both AT&T and Verizon Wireless announced similar policies for both their wireless and wireline subscribers. Although the U.S.’s fourth largest carrier — T-Mobile — was the first to offer this courtesy when an earthquake struck Haiti back in January of 2010, the company has, up to th...

A U.K. woman armed with a Samsung Galaxy S running the SWYPE keyboard has broken the Guinness World Record for text messaging. The 27-year old managed to swipe out the phrase: “the razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human,” in just under 26 seconds. The time bests the official record, held by a 24-year old American, by over nine seconds. As the Press Association reports, “Ms T...

Did we nail it or what? Today Rogers announced the creation of chatr, the low-cost wireless brand we exclusively told you about last week. Created to serve what Rogers calls a “niche” market that is not currently served by its flagship and value brands Rogers Wireless and Fido, chatr will offer no contract voice and text plans as well as unlimited talk and text plans. Data is not a part of chatr’s game plan. According to Rogers, the big draw of chatr is not only its great plans, but that for...

While the world’s attention is glued to the small island nation of Haiti and the struggles of its inhabitants as they cope with the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake, it is nice to see at least one of our wireless carriers stepping up to the plate to offer much needed assistance. T-Mobile USA came forward and is offering its customers free international long distance calls to and from Haiti from January 12th, 2010 through January 31, 2010. T-Mobile is also pledging to donate much needed wireless eq...

Remember when we announced the Peek Pronto and how funny it was that anyone would even consider a messaging-only device? Who would possibly want that in the company of BlackBerrys and iPhones? Well, Amazon has struck up a deal that some may find to be pretty hard to pass up: lifetime service with no monthly payments. If you have it in you to fork over $300 for the Peek Pronto, you can enjoy a lifetime of email (Exchange mail included) and all the text messages you can handle. Assuming your Peek doesn’t ...

Google rarely sends new features out into the wild before they are ready for prime time, despite the fact that it stamps just about everything with “beta”, but SMS via chat was something that apparently had one too many hiccups out of the gate. Google first announced SMS integration back in October but ran into a few snags early on and had to pull the service rather quickly. SMS is back however, and Google claims it’s better than ever. The service can be activated from within the Labs tab &#...

According to DSL Reports, Verizon Wireless has been quietly ending their SMS delivery confirmations. You know those quick icon changes (letter D or a green checkmark) that occur when your text message has been delivered to your recipient; well, they’re suddenly not working anymore. Discontinuation of the service reportedly started on September 9th on a regional basis and all regions should see the service gone by the end September. According to the word on the forums, the service was stopped in order to...

Looks like the four major US cell phone providers have been caught with their proverbial hands in the consumers pocket. Recently, Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the antitrust subcommittee, sent a letter to the four major US Carriers (AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile) asking them to explain why text messaging rates have doubled over the past 3 years when the cost to send them has remained the same. Seems like the Senator also noticed that when one carrier raises costs, they all follow suit. Aren̵...