Carrier Text Rates Highway Robbery

September 10, 2008

(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)

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In search of the perfect scheme to milk profits out of thin air and get away with it? Become a cellular carrier!

You’ve no doubt noticed the swarms of young people who seem to be typing away endlessly on their phones these days - their eyes rarely bothering to make contact with another human being. Out of touch? Hardly. The text messaging craze was born out of the innate need of young people to be as social as possible. And while it is often impossible to carry on a never ending phone conversation during work or school, it is all too easy to do so while text messaging. Gone are the days of teens talking loudly on their phones in public places and school – today they can confidentially text away for hours on end without anyone noticing.

But texting isn’t just for the young, it is also beginning to gain favor with those in older age groups as well. Particularly as a way for parents and their children to stay in touch. And as these plugged in parents begin to text their friends, they are introducing text to a whole new generation of users.

Texting is a true viral phenomenon. If you receive a text message, you feel compelled to respond and thus become indoctrinated to the practice. Receive enough texts to become comfortable with it, and you may become a regular texter yourself. This has fueled an exponential growth in texting for all of the carriers, for whom texting has been a windfall of profit - mostly because the cost of a text message is miniscule compared to what they are able to charge for it.

But for reasons that only the head of an evil corporate empire can explain - the cellular carriers have been raising the rates they charge for text messages. While just a few years ago some customers were paying an average 10 cents per message, they are now paying up to 20 cents per message. At about 160 bytes of bandwidth for each message, that works out to an unbelievable cost of about $1,300 per megabyte – making texting not just over priced, but out and out highway robbery! And now that all of the major carriers have adopted similar fees for texting, there isn’t anywhere else for a customer to go if they fear that they are being subjected to unfairly inflated prices. What’s a consumer to do? Revert to chiseling messages on stone tablets?

And the carriers might just get away with charging a kings ransom in gold for mere pebbles of text usage if it weren’t for the pesky meddling of Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis) who heads the Judiciary Antitrust and Competition Subcommittee. Kohl has just launched an inquiry to determine why the carriers have doubled their fees and whether there is any potential collusion between the carriers on this issue.

With any luck, this get rich quick scheme will be put to an end and allow for the greater adoption of texting for everyone. Otherwise, it will be back to the olden days of being subjected to loud conversations in every restaurant and on every corner - “Oh my gawd Staci, I can’t believe it - she did WHAT? TMI, tell me more.”

Written by Todd · Filed Under Mobile