When surfing around on my-symbian.com, I came across myBuddies, a free ICQ client for the P800. Most surprisingly it works quite well (I did my first testing with an active link to my desktop PC to avoid senseless GPRS charges).
What may look like a little toy is quite useful actually: GPRS connections are payed for transmitted data not for connection time so I can stay connected to the network without much cost and reach most of the people I usually send SMS to via the internet.
So let’s do a little calculation how many caracters I can send via ICQ to be as expensive as an SMS:
Swisscom currently charges CHF 0.20 for a SMS (max. 160 characters as you know). According to the current price list you get 10KBytes GPRS transfer volume for the same price which corresponds to 10240 Bytes. Subtract a protocol overhead of about 20%, you still get 8192 Bytes for the same price as an SMS – that’s 51 times cheaper than an SMS!
Drawback: Swisscom charges at least 10KB for every connection, so I will try to stay connected ;-)
Of course, if I’d switch to Sunrise it would get even cheaper: There is no 10 KB-Limit and it’s just CHF 7.50 per MByte (CHF 0.07 per 10 KBytes) so it’s 3 times cheaper than Swisscom [note to myself: I really should switch! NOW!] which means 8192*3 = 24576 Bytes for the same price as an SMS.
You get the idea how cool this seemingly senseless ICQ-Application for the P800 can be ;-)
If only someone would release a Jabber client allowing me to connect to my own pet jabber-server… Or maybe it’s time to really begin brushing up my Java-knowledge?
gnegg 