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OMG Did U C What U R Paying 4 Texting?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the stop-texting-me-dammit dept.

theodp writes "If you thought gas prices were rising too quickly, writes CNET's Marguerite Reardon, check out what's been happening to text messaging. Since 2005, rates to send and receive text messages on all four major carrier networks have doubled from 10 cents to 20 cents per message. If the same pricing was applied on a per-byte basis to a single MP3 song download, it would set you back almost $24,000 according to one estimate. So why are carriers gouging their customers so? Because they can, concludes Reardon."

2 of 721 comments (clear)

  1. Channel miles by suso · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I was being generous. You also have to account for cell towers not being right next to COs and so you get charged for channel miles. A T1 that is 15 miles from the CO might be in the thousands of dollars. But its been a while since I've had to look this up.

  2. Re:Some data 4 U by Gordonjcp · · Score: 0, Redundant

    (Yes, you can get your cell carrier to disable texting to your phone, you just have to yell at them for a while until they give you to a supervisor who can actually do it.)

    Why would you disable *receiving* text messages? It's sending them that costs money...