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What Carriers Don't Want You To Know About Texting

Posted by timothy on from the what-the-market-will-bear dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Randall Stross has just published a sobering article in The New York Times about how the four major US wireless carriers don't want anyone to know the actual cost structure of text message services to avoid public outrage over the doubling of a-la-carte per-message fees over the last three years. The truth is that text messages are 'stowaways' inside the control channel — bandwidth that is there whether it is used for texting or not — and 160 bytes per message is a tiny amount of data to store-and-forward over tower-to-tower landlines. In essence it costs carriers practically nothing to transmit even trillions of text messages. When text usage goes up, the carriers don't even have to install new infrastructure as long as it is proportional to voice usage. This makes me dream of the day when there is real competition in the wireless industry, not this gang-of-four oligopoly."

6 of 570 comments (clear)

  1. Correlation by conureman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The feckless youth I see texting in public do not appear to be the sort who employ reason or critical faculties. That's the kind of customer base dreams are made of.

    --
    The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
    1. Re:Correlation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's because their parents are the ones footing the bill... ouch.

    2. Re:Correlation by michael021689 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are reasons a lot of us prefer texting over a call in most situations.

      Calling represents a loss of time - you have to be somewhere away from others(if you are polite), wait as the phone rings, wait as you go over formalities, finally say what you needed to say, and then hang up. That is all a pain in the ass to us whippersnappers. Not to mention the annoyance of not getting an answer and having to wait to leave voicemail...(which is quite similar to a text, other than that it takes longer to convey a message and if something is missed it has to be replayed..)

      Texting is more polite. Although I know many over thirtys who disagree, many younger people often do not consider it impolite to receive and send text messages in public or with company (within reason, it can't distract you completely). Beyond that, sending a text does not heavily interrupt the day of you or your contact, unlike a phone call.

      Essentially, texting gets the same job done faster and with less hassle.

  2. Isn't exactly news by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...but it's good to see this fact receiving some mainstream attention. I guess it's inevitable that people now tend to ask that if it costs x dollars to transfer y megabyte from my phone, why do text messages cost a lot more when they are so tiny? In the digital age text message fees seem more and more ludicrous even to ordinary people.

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
  3. Re:Failed economics class by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, apparently you failed economics.

    If there is sufficient competition in the market profits will be driven to zero and the price of the service will approach the *actual* cost of providing it (which is close to zero, apparently). The fact that text messages cost 1000s of times more than they should indicates that there is insufficient competition in the industry, excessive barriers to entry into the market, etc.

  4. Re:Goodness gracious me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    World prices for sugar is about 1/5 that of sugar costs inside the USA.

    HFCS is less expensive in the US than sugar.

    The artificial prices of sugar and the artificial price of corn leads the USA to use corn for sweeteners and corn to make ethanol.

    The solution is to stop propping up the US sugar companies. If C&H cannot compete on the world market, then let them fail. Why should the population of the US prop up an industry which has had many many decades to compete on the world market.