Hi Skylark4,
I have just configured my mobile phone and it took about ten 10 seconds to send and receive a text message and about 20 seconds to send and receive a picture from one phone to another sitting on the table in front of me. Most of the time is taken in processing inside the mobile DSP s/w.
The service providers (Vodafone) in my case are starting to charge for this picture sending or MMS service from 1st February at a rate of 36p per picture as opposed to between 6p -12p per text msg, so it is more expensive and some may say why bother, but it could be fun at PPRuNe bashes or if away from family etc to take some snaps and send them or download them to a PC.
The idea of text messages (or SMS) is quite good and I have found that a great deal of people use it, certainly I keep in touch with fellow PPRuNe Chatters using text messages, unfortunately Mrs Gumble sends me shopping lists by SMS also which is a pain
It keeps the cost down and does stop the intrusive element of mobile phone usage that some folk object to.
Interestingly enough the concept was never designed for user to user message transmission. In the early days of GSM it was written into the specification for service providers to send alerts to their users, but since user to user and inter-service provider barriers were removed it seems to have taken off remarkably.
One other thing I thought about when reading the thread above was that on Nokia products the camera will only operate if the product is turned on and a SIM card installed which means the product would be in a cellular mode and therefore updating every now using the GSM transmission infrastructure so therefore shouldn't be used in flight me thinks! Best idea is to make sure that the GSM ( or TDMA, CDMA, WCDMA, AMPS, TACS etc etc) RF module is definately disabled before using them in flight or you may find yourself a little off navigational track!!
Regards
Barney
P.S. I can help you if you want to know how to send a text using a Nokia mobile phone, since I know these products quite well. I will send you a PM if you want some more info.