SMS is an acronym that stands for Short Message Service or text message on a mobile phone. According to Forrester, the use of SMS has been increasing over the past few years and turned into the workhorse of mobile phones. In 2011, United States citizens experienced an increase of SMS by over 14% or 2 trillion messages sent. This converts to a whopping 6 billion SMS text messages sent every single day or an average mobile phone owner receiving or sending 35 messages a day! Wow!

Are you one of these heavy SMS users? Do you enjoy staying in touch with friends, family and relatives via SMS? Are you currently paying for an unlimited text plan in addition to local and international calls? Although a SMS plan is typically cheaper than international phone service, you’re still paying A LOT. Most people believe that unlimited SMS plans aren’t too bad of a deal. To them, they view it like buying wholesale from a supermarket. They get the lower rates because they are buying bulk although locked in with that company.

The Big But

However, this isn’t quite an accurate assumption. The main problem with an SMS plan is the lock-in period and contract. You see, for an SMS plan to work, a company must make it appear that the contract deal is way better than a month-to-month contract or signing up with another provider. The lock-in period falls under the post paid plan that demands a contract to be signed by you in exchange for a lower rate. The big disadvantage is that even if you wanted to change your company mid stream, you can’t unless you incur high costs. Ouch.

The Alternative

The good news is that there is an alternative to all this plan madness. You shouldn’t be forced to sign up with a monthly high cost plan. Instead, you can up for a SMS plan that offers the same for less. Some companies even offer amazing deals on free calls, international and local, and SMS messaging. You even text from your tablet or use the free app-to-app texting feature.

Companies that are still relying on traditional phone plans with strict, almost uncompromising terms should be avoided. This is a thing of the past! Lucky for consumers, the Internet is providing alternates and smaller companies to bring better services and offer affordable plans without the crippling monopolistic and often high-brow attitude of the larger providers.

The reality is, with innovative offers from numerous companies that provide free SMS messaging, you can finally free yourself from a dependency on big companies who kind of think they are the king of the world…and charge us higher rates that lock us in. With 33% of Americans still choosing SMS messaging over mobile and internet calls, it really makes good economic sense to evaluate other texting and calling options. It’s really about time we took control over our budgets and free apps can help.