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80,012 Text Messages In One Month
webguru4god writes "According to an article on AZCentral.com, a man in New Zealand sent an average of 2,580 text messages a day for a whole month to protest his cell phone provider cancelling their unlimited text messaging plan. I recently received a faulty cell phone bill for $2000 claiming that I sent 40,000 text messages in one month, which I thought was physically impossible. But apparently this man has doubled that number and managed to get 8 hours of sleep each night for the month!"
I think this entire 'unlimited' offering is silly...it seems we're seeing more and more cases of some group of customers that basically exceed whatever the company expects the realistic extreme to be, and the company simply creates a cap. An ISP might offer unlimited bandwidth, the the minute a few people start managing to pull down 20gig a day, or say, a phone company customer base starts sending 10,000 text messages a day, we start seeing things like this. We know there's a reasonable extreme to be expected in any service like this, and it'd be nice of the companies responsbile just gave a good limit (1 gig of free e-mail, anyone?) that most people won't get close to hitting, but is big enough to keep users coming in.
I know nothing
Little over a year ago, there was an MMS war between the telcos here in Norway and all MMS messages were free of charge. The price war continued for half a year and I save a lot on using MMS to send text instead of SMS.
What i've always wondered on my plan, is why text messaging costs more than phoning. I'm on pay and talk at the moment, while phoning costs like 5 cents per minute, and texting costs 15 cents per message. It's crazy! Texting takes longer to type, you can only get like 140 CHARACTERS per message, and yet it costs 3 times more! I dont know, but texting should be like internet, you pay a certain fee per month, and you get unlimited messaging. What cost for bandwidth does a little bit of words cost???
Sure, you might say that I'm abusing the system, but hey, I signed up for unlimited text messages, so that's what I expected to get. If they didn't want it to be unlimited why didn't they just say '500 free messages a day' or something.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
It's a PHONE, how about you just call the person instead? It seems so pointless to waste you time thumbing in silly little messages that people can barely understand instead of just punching in their phone number and saying what you need to say.
Buckethead
I think he misunderstood the word "protest". To me it seems like he just proved the telecoms point.
I don't feel sorry for him that he can't continue to send a text message every 20 seconds. If it was me he was sending his "hi, how are you" drivel to, my response would probably be something in the line of "Shut the f*ck up dude"
He's probably still paying it off...
Following is a link to an article in New Zealand's major daily on the company itself - may they rot in hell. Anti-competitive personified.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID =3570468
The Mothership
I think what he was trying to proove was that it costs the phone company pretty much nothing to route a text message, which is a stupid protest because the phone company probably didnt even feel it and is laughing over the morning newspaper. On my phone it costs between about 5p and 10p which is still a rip-off, but what really pisses me off more than anything, is the priority at which sms traffic gets given, sometimes it can get lost for several hours and you have to think HOW FUCKING HARD IS IT TO ROUTE 160 BYTES?!? I swear the leaching phone companies use the internet for some of it, especially if it goes over-seas which pisses me off even more - you put something that will fit into a single packet through a free network and then charge nearly a dollar?!? yes i know they are just trying to make money, but the point is, and i think that guy is with me here, WE are the union of phone users and if we all push our weight and say to the phone companies FUCK YOU then we can get what we want and they can be are bitch slaves. Ok or they could just make it much cheaper, why do we put up with this? this has to be the most poor yet most widely used mobile service in the world and yet we take all its bullshit? 160 characters! thats all you get in this day and age!? This is their little money cow, rip the customers off and they will stand for it because no-one is organised enough to mass protest it.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
IMO, the current chaos is created by the "all you can eat" mentality.
Which is wrong... exactly why?
Anyone offering flat rate, unlimited-for-fixed-price (all you can eat) takes on a risk. This is obvious for anyone with basic understanding of economy. The same happened with unlimited internet access - marketing made assumptions about usage patterns that turned out wrong.
However in this case it may be simpler, as it seems somewhat to be bait and switch thing. Honest limited time offers say they are limited.
The moon is not fully subjugated. I demand a second assault wave preceded by a massive nuclear bombardment.
Don't most agreements with service companies include verbage like "conditions are subject to change [with|without] notice.."? In addition to often disclaiming that they aren't to blame if they don't actually provide adequate service or reliability. Agreements that are subject to change are fairly useless and all too common. But, we accept them.
I can't imagine why your wife would rather be with another man than with you. You sound like a total dreamboat.
Putting myself in her position, it might have been worth the $3,200 to receive absolute assurance that she was making the right decision.
Posted anonymously, lest you decide to take revenge against me too.
Qwest was screwing me over for a number of years by bundling services I didn't want into my land line. They would actually charge me $6 a month because I wasn't getting long distance service!! I cut my land line mostly so I wasn't giving money to Qwest, but adding my wife's cell phone on to my plan actually saved us about $40 a month in basic service and long distance charges. I had many more unneeded features forced upon me with my landline than with my cell. I guess I should have said this before, but I use my cell phone for calls, the occasional text message, and voice mail, not for games, pictures and all that other crap. I'm not paying extra for that stuff in my plan though - Verizon actually lets you pay just for the services you'll use.
Y'know, understanding cell phone usage may just not be obvious to you because of your lifestyle. I live in Colorado, and we actually go out and do things (including weekend travel) very frequently. If we're trying to meet family or friends coming in to town, it's much easier to have them contact us this way, and we're not pinned to the house if we need to run errands or something.
Let me give you another example. I'm teaching college classes at night as a second job. The dean called the other day while I was at work to offer me options for courses to teach for summer session. I waited to decide and responded that evening, and I didn't get the class I wanted because another professor had taken it. However, if I had answered him on the spot I would have received the class I wanted. It would not have been feasible to check voice mail at home because I wasn't expecting the call, and I'm not one to waste time calling a voice mail box that's usually empty.
It's fine to not understand why people desire or need cell phones, but it really surprises me that someone with the nickname "ModernGeek" can't see how they would benefit some people with active lifestyles. If they don't fit your lifestyle, that's great, but with my traveling, it's awesome that I can call from wherever I stop for lunch to keep in touch with family or avoid stupid "per call" charges at the occasional hotel. If you pick the right plan for your lifestyle, you can really save yourself money or headaches. I'm well aware that I'm paying close to $1000 per year for two phones, but it's worth it to me to be able to stay in touch with my family, who also get out of their houses frequently.
Land lines are so much easier,
My landline phone only remembers the last number I dialed. My cell phone remembers the last 10, and has 200 more in the address book. (I can also store numbers on my landline phone, but I can't attach names to them, so I'd have to make a separate record of what number is which person... too much hassle.)
So there's lots of times when it's easier for me to pick up my cell phone to make a call, even when I'm home.
you have unlimited calls to all your friends in your area code,
I live in Los Angeles. About three of my friends are in my area code. The city itself has four different area codes.
Granted, many of those are still not toll charges, but some of them are, and I can't tell by the area code which will be. My friend in Van Nuys (818) is local, but my friend in Reseda (also 818) is a toll call.
and you can sit and chat with them all day like it is nothing if you want, because it isn't going to cost you a dime more or less todo so.
While with my cell phone, I can do the same to my friend in San Jose or my mom when she's out of town in Detroit or Nigeria, and have the same experience... because it's a very, very rare occurence for me to go over my monthly minutes.
With a cellphone, you have all these funky plans, unneeded features, and hidden costs.
My cell phone bill is the same each month, within a few cents. My landline varies more.
I have no "unneeded features." I get a package that includes the features I want and will use. I don't want text messaging, so my package doesn't include it. I do want unlimited long distance, so my package gives me that.
A second landline can be had for $15/mo, so you can have two numbers, one for you, and one for the kids.
I can add a second line to my cell phone for $9.99/month. Oh, and, that $15/month doesn't include about $5/month in taxes, surcharges, and fees you'll be paying. (Same is true of the cell phone, but since many are a percentage of what you pay, it's even cheaper by comparison.)
All for about $35/mo, and you don't have to worry about "going over". If you have family in another state, just get a calling card, or get a good long distance plan.
Or, get a good cell phone plan for about $40/month, and pay nothing extra for long distance or "local toll" at all.
We cancelled long distance service on our landline, because AT&T started charging us $6/month even when we didn't use it. We never use it, because it's free from our cell phones.
So, it sounds like you're woefully underinformed about cellular service, and you're paying for your ignorance. Good on you.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?