SMS sent by Gmail users to Mobilink subscribers will be free of cost, but with limited daily credits. Gmail offers initial SMS credit for 50 SMSes, which decreases each time you send an SMS from the Gmail chat client. Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat (for example when a phone user replies to one of your messages) your credit increases by five, up to a maximum of 50.
Pssst, you can also send an SMS to your own phone, and then reply to that message multiple times to get 5 credits for each reply. This is legal, as you’re buying credits by paying your phone company - finally they're getting smarter - maybe they read my previous blog post.
As usual, Google has been smart about it - the way they've designed it gets rid of spammers, who will not have credits after sending the first 50 messages - and how many new Google accounts are they going to make, right?
Right.
But it sucks that other operators in Pakistan haven't picked this service up because, see, with Mobile Number Portability it is impossible to detect the mobile service provider your contact is using (just by looking at the number). So now it will be hit and trial for most of us if we use the free SMS service, and if we get a reply back - only THEN we will know our contact has a Mobilink number and that they received our message.
But hello! Taraqqi!
Overseas Pakistanis will be pleased.
