www.quickim.com

[techsupport]

Question: In order to send message do you have to connect to the internet or is it like just a text message? If I use Quick IM MSN Messenger using GPRS, how many kb of data will it use?

Answer:

You have to connect to internet. But usually your mobile operator charges you per the quantity of data sent/received and not on the amount of time you stay connected. The mobile internet connection is often called GPRS or Edge or WCDMA or UTMS connections. QuickIM IM client will use very little GPRS data as you are only exchanging text (approximately 1 char = 1 byte + message header which is < 100 bytes per message), upstream and downstream. You can check your GPRS log file for the actual data, of course you need to make sure QuickIM is the only network application that is running.

Note: QuickIM does not poll the server, this makes a very big difference with all messengers that use pollings every few seconds (you'll use a few hundred bytes every few seconds for polling even if you are not chatting).

Conclusion: to get the final cost of a messenger software, make sure the data consumption is low. Compared to data cost savings, QuickIM licence fee is probably small.