Which do people prefer to use for short messages?  The short messaging system (SMS) or Tweets, DMs, and Facebook email and wall updates? Myla Iglesiasa of Malaya online news says, “Filipinos are likely to send more messages through social networking sites, a trend that is expected to hurt the telecom revenue from call and text services this year, according to telecom analysts.”

In the fact, the Philippines is known as the “text capital of the world.” It completes more than one billion messages per day. The Philippines is ranked 5th as of November 2011 in number of Facebook users compared to other countries.

The top then from most to least in number of users (not percentage of population using Facebook) are United States, Indonesia, UK, Turkey, Philippines, India, Mexico, France, Italy, and Canada as of December 2010.

The country with the most growth in the number of users * Democratic Republic of Congo 259.07%, Federated States of Micronesia 103.7%, Sierra Leone 77.24%, Montegro 65.07%, Guinea 48.5%, Tajikistan 45.6%, Brazil 36.7%, China 36.45%, Haiti 32.27%, and Mali 30.45%. (By the way, presidential election is taking place in Democratic Republic of Congo.)

Find your country’s position at SocialBakers.  These statistics are updated regularly and dynamically, so the % you see above is bound to change positive, negative or neutral.

“Wondering the effect on local telecommunications companies in the countries where social networking adoption has increased to these high levels?” says one Techistan community member who works for MTN in Cote D’iVoire. “Maybe these telcos and operators should start finding revenue potential within or beside of the social networking platforms. Might as well grab the future instead of it grabbing us.”

“I think another reason for the popularity of Facebook over SMS for communication is being able to inexpensively see and show much more via Facebook such as music, voice, text, and video with our current and potential friends. It takes me less than ten minutes to see how everyone in my 311 person network is doin via Facebook, and it’s rich with what I really want to see, not just a photo, a one line of text on SMS,” adds another Techistan reader from Cairo.

Many alternatives to SMS and call services are available online to be used on one’s laptop, netbook, tablet, smart phone or even iPod Touch. Skype, VoIPStunt, Vopium, Google Talk, MphoneGG, Nimbuzz, fring, and hundreds more. A simple search in mobile apps for Android, Windows, Android, Symbian, or Web-based will result in a plethora of SMS and voice services free or low-cost using the Internet. A majority of these have pretty good voice quality.

Tim Panton of PhoneFromHere states in answer to a query on how Skype on smart phones could benefit carriers, “There are 2 ways of delivering skype to a mobile. 1) running a full skype client on the phone (like iphone) this requires CPU and IP bandwidth, but can carry video anfull range of codecs. 2) run a skype gateway server in the telco, and complete the calls over GSM- chat, presence and call setup are done by a lighter weight and low bandwidth client software on the phone (Three in the UK and verizon offer this). I guess the article (at http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-20031855-78.html) is talking about the second one, the audio quality is worse, but battery life is longer.”

Some text messaging programs that are poised to compete with traditional methods include MPhone (recently interviewed by Techistan, and also  Chikka which offers free outgoing text messages from computers to cell phones, but it has no part in the provision of replies from cell phones. WhatsApp Messenger is a smartphone messaging application that enables users to send and receive messages with contacts free, but they have to be using iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia/Symbian phones and only if they have subscribed their smartphone to an internet data plan or WiFi.

For leading wireless telecom provider side, Danilo Mojica, SMART head of Wireless Consumer Division, admitted that the Filipinos’ strong adoption of social networking sites was another challenge the company is facing. He said that even when they offer services at a very low price, subscribers still choose platforms that are available online.

Danilo Mojica who is head of the Wireless Consumer Division of SMART in the Philippines says that the real competition for wireless operators is from What’sApp, Skype, Facebook and Android.

Many mobile operators plan to capture market potential of mobile data, investing heavily to improve networks to be the choice of consumers for smart phone and Internet plan usage.

Devin shares something to ponder in Where, “In 2005, a study performed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)  found that 8% of adults lived in households without a landline. In December 2010, the CDC discovered that number has more than tripled, with 27% of adult Americans having gone completely wireless. While it’s no surprise that mobile phone adaption in the U.S. is over 90%, the fact that over a quarter of the country has completely abandoned wired telephones is another indicator of the increasingly vital role mobile phones play in everyday life.”

The next wireless and mobile-related conference where thousands of people and organizations will meet to develop business, expand markets and collaborate in innovations … is CTIA Wireless, taking place in Orlando, Florida March 21-24, 2011. Get in on the hottest business, wireless, and Internet trends at CTIA.