BT predicts the death of text

Text messaging could become a dead technology within the next few years, according to research from BT.

Many consumers want a converged communication tool that can send emails, instant messages, make phone calls and access the web from anywhere, BT's research, conducted in conjunction with Ipsos MORI, found.

"Consumers are telling us that instead of carrying around lots of different devices, what many really want is one communications tool," said Alnoor Samji, director of Ipsos MORI.

According to Samji, this could spell the end of text messages as a mobile device that lets people use instant messaging would render them obsolete.

BT's 21st Century Life Index Report, which was released today, examines the digital world as it stands today compared with the visions of the public 10 years ago.

It found that the proportion of the population now spending more than five hours per week online has doubled in the last 10 years from just 24 per cent in 1998 to 57 per cent in 2008.

www.bt.com