[such12]

SMS isn’t the telephone. VoIP mostly isn’t done using phone numbers, and to the extent that it is, is a way to grandfather in a legacy technology.

The iPhone is not primarily a telephone. If you are going to argue that it is, you really aren’t being reasonable.

Also, if you look at the history, you’ll discover that these innovations were all held back by regulation and the fixed nature of the phone system.

[MichaelCollins]

> SMS isn’t the telephone.

Nonsensical distinction. The common person sends and receives SMS using their telephone, using the same phone numbers used to call people, with the same disregard for whether they and the recipient use the same phone company because, like telephone calls, SMS works across companies. When you port your phone number to a new phone company, you continue to receive SMS sent to your number just as you do phone calls.

[such12]

How do you explain why landline phones can’t send and receive SMS?

[MichaelCollins]

Different phones have different capabilities, what's there to explain? SMS is something people pay their phone company for, use their phone number for, follows them when they port their phone number to a new phone company, and works when they send it to somebody using a different phone company. It's obviously part of the telephone system.

(And in actual fact, there are phone companies that do offer SMS service to landline phones.)

[such12]

> Different phones have different capabilities, what's there to explain?

That your definition of ‘phone’ is meaningless. If phones can have any capability you like, then ‘phone’ doesn’t mean anything.

Once you are playing that game you may as well just declare that social networks can be regulated because they are a ‘capability some things that can also communicate with phones have’, and phones are already regulated.

[frosted-flakes]

Landline phones can often receive SMS messages, but I'm pretty sure this is a carrier feature that hasn't been standardised.

[such12]

> I'm pretty sure this is a carrier feature that hasn't been standardised.

So not actually part of what it means to be a phone then.

[pixl97]

Just enable text services on your landlines. With this said not every provider service.