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Of all the systems to transmit messages, SMS is probably the least proprietary.

Do you even need to ask your recipient what carrier they're using or do you just punch in their number and text away? Does it work regardless of what brand of mobile phone they have? Does it work even if their phone is temporarily disconnected from the network?

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> Do you even need to ask your recipient what carrier they're using or do you just punch in their number and text away? Does it work regardless of what brand of mobile phone they have? Does it work even if their phone is temporarily disconnected from the network?

WeChat has all of those features, but I don't think anyone would regard it as other than proprietary...

The SMS protocols are indeed not proprietary (all the specs are online) but you'll either need a contract with an aggregator or with every mobile network operator you'd like to send traffic to. Not very handy. :)

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