pavyedav | boredom and inherent curiosity, in one

A cool little application on Android called Smozzy has taken the mobile app. space by storm in the past few weeks (or maybe it hasn’t, what the hell do I know?) I’m a little late to the party, but I think this app is really cool. In a nutshell, it allows you to surf the web without ever using data. Yes, that’s right. You will not have to use a data plan in order to get content you want from the web. How? Users send SMS messages to Smozzy of the link they want to open, then Smozzy opens up the link on their servers, and then sends back the opened web page in an MMS message (they compress the web page and then package these zip files as PNGs.) All of this uses the forward control channel, and never touches the channel used for data. It’s pretty ingenious, and it’s free! Yay, Berkeley guy.

Of course, there’s never a free lunch. The most conspicuous caveats: (1) Its speeds are egregiously slow, as they don’t even rival 2G GPRS. This is expected given that it’s running only via text. No one was actually thinking we’d get 4G speeds, right? (2) There are countless security issues because they do not have any encryption methods, so it is advised not to access any sites that require personal information. (3) It’s only available on Android. Apparently they had a very difficult time actually developing the software and system on Android, so it looks like the iPhone app may be a while down the road. (4) It’s only available on T-Mobile. As of right now, it has very limited carrier reach.

Having said that, it seems like Smozzy could be extremely useful when all you want is very basic data service or a simple ability to access something from the web with no time constraints. I would definitely like to see it in action. However, many are commenting that once cellular service providers become aware of Smozzy’s scope, they will immediately block the application or squash users who have it as some sort of breach of contract. I don’t know whether it will be big enough of an issue where users will want to get rid of their data plans altogether. In the end, it’s a cool workaround and a novel idea, but it is by no means a permanent solution to accessing the web without having to pay for a data plan (or so I think.)