Hi John,
Don't know quite what you mean by SMS 'Plan' but I can assure you (as a former programmer of the first automatic cellular radio test systems) that there is no way that SMS (= Short Message Service) could have the capacity for video streaming, or even audio for that matter. As the name suggests!
"Trouble is, here (don't know how it works there) is that all internet is on some sort of usage plan" True, if you insist on using 'Dumbphones'.
I use almost exclusively a PC/DSL connection and the only restriction I have is how much I can leave / archive in my Mail account which is stored on the provider server, 1GB max currently. Could buy some more, but what for?
What I do on the Web is irrelevant.
So all I need to do is occasionally clean out my Mailbox; deleted, sent, received etc.
What I want to preserve I transfer to a hard drive, either as eml or pdf..
BTW: I wouldn't touch What's App with a 20 foot barge pole, or Facebook, Twitter and all the others for that matter. Given their misuse of personal data as well as all the hacker attacks they have suffered it simply confirms the impression I got while involved in the early days of the net and especially the various cellular systems.
I also did some programming on UK Type Approval test systems and could recognise the expansion possibilities of the cellular radio systems; all the large data blocks labelled 'Reserved for future functions' and filled with zeroes!
I had to first analyse the data exchange between mobile and cell site to then devise a suitable test protocol.
With the increase in usable bandwidth this 'availability' has since expanded considerably, not always for the benefit of the user - ever more for the provider!
This site is the only 'social site' I'm on, I trust Stephen (
Fireboat
) far more than Mr Sugarmountain and Co.
Regarding some sort of 'Group chat', great idea by the way; perhaps a VPN?
Maybe Ed (Figtree) could help us with setting up something like that?
Cheers, Doug ๐