Vyke launches free mobile text messages

VoIP provider Vyke Communications Plc has launched Vyke Pro which allows its customers to text each other for free and text anyone else for just a penny.

According to Vyke, although texting seems a cheap alternative to voice calls, the actual cost is exorbitant. The company has worked out that it costs around £750 per MB to send a text message in the UK.

This is based on a cost of 12p for a text message of 160 characters. Every character in a text message equates to 1 byte of data.

At this rate it is 10 times cheaper for NASA to get messages back from the Hubble space telescope, byte for byte, than to send a text message in the UK.

NASA pays around £61.50 per MB to receive data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which is located 600km from Earth.

Vyke Pro is an easily downloadable programme and is compatible with all recent Java enabled handsets.

International calls can also be cheaper with Vyke Pro. With the ‘Call’ feature, a user can set up a call to any number worldwide. The Vyke service calls back to the user almost instantaneously and then connects them with the required number