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OMG Did U C What U R Paying 4 Texting?
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."
Most people who are serious about texting have unlimited plans, at least in the U.S. I'm not sure how much they cost but say $5/month on top of your regular contract, even 100 text messages is 5 cents a piece.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Why do people put up with this?
Because we can.
Fine print: I work in internet advertising.
517,602,528. There must be something infectious about Verizon and getting your decimal points in the wrong place.
I just emailed Sprint asking for free text messaging and got it. I have done this for about 10 extra things on my account for free. I have 500 free text messages a month and never used half
There should be a class action suit over this.
Why? No-one is forced to spend their money on text messages. Truth is the networks charge what they do because people are willing to pay it. People simply don't care about the bytes to dollar/euro/pound; ratio. For example, the last four messages I received from my brother contained a total of about 25 characters, 8 of which were exclamation marks.
If usage drops, then prices will follow, but that doesn't look like happening soon.
This comment is for entertainment purposes only. Any similarity to real insight or information is purely coincidental.
In Norway, NOK0.59 is a pretty average price to pay, which corresponds to about $0.012 using todays rates. Furthermore, many companies give you 100+ free messages per month. With my own usage pattern, I keep my cellphone for free (No monthly charge, 120 mins of calling and 90 sms for free per month). Stiff competition does wonders :) If companies in Norway can do this, I'm sure it would be possible in the states too, as long as the consumers keep up the pressure.
Furthermore, get off my lawn!
Thank god no one texts me duplicate Slashdot stories!
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
i have an AT&T phone - i don't have a text message plan because i have the data plan and juse AIM/ICQ on my phone...
i get charged 25cents for each incoming text message - there is no way for me to disable incoming text messsages...
that is bull shit - i don't want them - but they don't have a way of disabeling them coming in - and yet they will happly charge me for incoming...
if they are going to charge on a per message basis - the sender should play flat out, oh wait they do... then why the hell am i paying to recive?
right now at AT&T the rate (if you don't have a messagling plan) is 35cents to send and 25cents recive..
that is 60 cents per message..
are they trying to tell me that they are so damn bad at delivering small bits of data accross the cell network that it costs them more than the oh so inefficent us postal office does to send a first class letter physicly accross the country (42cents)
the phone compaines are full of shit.. as soon as there is a better way - I.e. a company that doesn't screw everyone over .. i will be more than happy to switch
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Texting prices in .dk: ~5 cents and falling. Yay free market economy! The US should try it one day.
You started the economics discussion, so here comes ECON 102.
There are only a small number of wireless carriers. Therefore an oligopoly exists. The demand curve for oligopolies is "kinked." This means above a certain point customers will rapidly stop buying, but below this point buyers will not start purchasing in drastically greater numbers. This means that the oligopoly will set a price point right at the kink in the graph.
What does this mean?
1) A section of the populace feels txts are necessary, and demand is inelastic. This is the lower half of the demand curve. This means a change in price does affect demand significantly.
2) An increase in population of that subset of people changes the demand curve, and moves the kink in the graph higher on the price axis. A price increase ensues. The oligopolies charge exactly the price they can get away with because market dominance allows them all to effectively charge the same prices easily. One carrier changes, the rest change to follow.
3) To stop this pattern, you don't have users reduce demand, you have to break the oligopoly, because lack of competition means that prices don't follow standard supply and demand.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I never understood why you would have to pay to receive a text-message. I'm from the Netherlands and here only the one who sends a message has to pay, receiving is free. As far as I know it is like that in every courty in Europe (but I didn't check them all). Where you come from, do you have to pay to get called too? Because if you don't, the whole thing doesn't make sense - a one second call has way more data-transfer than a 100-character text-message.
U.S. Cellular is fairly unique among readily available providers in WI in that they don't charge for incoming text - only outgoing. They've raised their outgoing prices along with everyone else, but they proudly advertise the fact that incoming text is free for everyone, even if they don't have a text plan. Any other national or regional carriers that do this?
"Sue a company because I don't like the pricing on its voluntary plan?"
No, sue them all because they are in breach of competition laws by clearly using price fixing as a method of hiking profits above what fair competition would yield.
Wait a minute. Do you pay when you receive text messages!? Do you also pay for receiving calls? What if you don't even answer? Why are you expected to pay for other person's decision of messaging with you? Is that even legal!?
Your head a splode
The original mail system did charge the receiver of the letter, but no one would pony up to receive it. They then decided to charge the sender to send, so they would get their money up front.
Cellular carriers give out free or subsidized phones as a method of keeping their customers signed up for long contracts. They keep a stranglehold on the equipment to further that.
However, by law when a carrier makes a material change mid-contract their customers, *all* their customers get a get out of contract free 30 day window. It's a great deal and you should exercise your rights when a carrier changes *anything* whether the change affects you or not.
So now that you know you are gaining important new rights that you didn't have before they raised the text message rates you can take advantage of that. You don't have to stop using the service, you can probably just cancel the agreement, though they may deny that. If they do just hang up and call back, it costs cellular carriers over $400 to acquire a customer, they don't want to lose you even month to month though they may deny that. So you're now month to month and can threaten to leave unless they give you another free phone. Heh.
FWIW I have done this. There was much gnashing of teeth at the cell carrier. Uh-oh. A customer who has actually read the contract!
.
Text messaging costs as much as it does purely to rip people off.
[snip]
The size limit is pathetic too
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then again I'm quite a verbose person.
I didn't notice ;)