Comments on: Congress questions high cost of texting

Sen. Herb Kohl sends a letter to the four major wireless carriers asking them to explain the high cost of text messaging.

[jeromatron]

Amen - while it's true they have to have *some* sort of business model - I think they've gone too far with something that is quite a commoditized feature. I am rather hoping that the opening of the market to Android and the iPhone as mobile general computing devices will have the effect of leveling those charges. However, I think it's nice that someone is thinking about this.

[Pete Bardo]

No kidding! Sending a text message must use far less resources than completing a voice call. Hey, it's only a few letters and takes only a couple of seconds! Twenty cents a message is absurd--and don't they charge to send and charge you again to receive it? That's how it looks on my bill.

[dpnation10]

Who knew Congress was good for something? While I'm locked into my 2 year iPhone 1.0 contract, the new 3G contract ups the price from .05 to .20 per text message. Somehow I don't think it's inflation..

[Labadorable]

Okay I agree about the cost of texting and the increase is questionable. But I am more concerned with the fact that the Senate Judiciary committee should be focusing on "why did FISA pass allowing these same telecomms to do wireless tapping" and oh yeah the subpoenas to Miers/Bolton about the politicizing of the DOJ! But hell this is an election year and I guess this type of investigation is more important than our Constitution! JMCO (just my cynical opinion).

[Xtoo]

Yes!!!! Lets get the prices of texting down. They are too expensive. An unlimited texting plan should be $10 not $20 or $25 like most carriers have it.

[chaatie]

Not only do the charges seem inflated, but consumers get charged on BOTH ends, whether sending or receiving. So providers get double the revenue, at twice the price, and consumers are squeezed from both sides. Congress is right to question the rates, but they should also question the practice of the double charge.

[chaatie]

Not only do the charges seem inflated, but consumers get charged on BOTH ends, whether sending or receiving. So providers get double the revenue, at twice the price, and consumers are squeezed from both sides. Congress is right to question the rates, but they should also question the practice of the double charge.

[jfrinkus]

Damn right! The United States Postal Service will physically deliver a 2-page letter across the country and back again for a round trip total of $0.82.

[chaatie]

Stamp prices went up a penny, so it would now cost $0.84, which still makes your point! totally agree.

[Bill_I]

Actually you can get about 4 pages into an envelope before it weighs more than 1 ounce. Current rates are 42 cents each way, but you can invest in Forever stamps to avoid future rate increases.

[shinelikeitdoes]

what i dont get is why when i pay for unlimited data for my iphone, it doesnt include text? i can send and recieve any amount of emails, attachments, browse the web, etc..but a text costs extra. stupid.

[degnext]

I'll give you a reason in 2 words. Collusive Oligopoly .

[Dalkorian]

I'll do better than degnext and give you a reason in 1 word - rape.

[ktmglen]

It's about time the cellular service providers felt some heat over their outrageous text message pricing.

[jbirge]

Bread and circus...

[paulopmx]

By comparison, in the Philippines its $0.02 per text, with the option of paying $0.48 for unlimited text for 1 day.

[NewsReader_]

Isn't it obvious...

SMS messages can replace a 2 minute phone call. The carriers loose per minute voice revenue each time an SMS message is sent. Increasing the price offsets this.

Plus they are a fad that is being cashed in on. Every teenager I see with a mobile phone has it buzzing 10 times a minute with text messages. They would be foolish not to cash in on this.

The only technical reason I could imagine for a price increase is because of "possible" increased bandwidth consumption between the phone and the tower and "maybe" increased storage for queued up messages. But that is a major stretch though. We are talking about 160 bytes which will fit in a single packet of data. Your phone generates more traffic than that just by being switched on.

[k2dave]

There is no increase in wireless bandwidth, the sms uses a previous unused portion of the wireless signal. This bandwidth was reserved for future applications.

[chash360]

Additionally there is no queuing, the message is stored on the senders device until, the recieving person's device and spare bandwidth is available, and then transferred directly using small packets piggy backed on the carrier signal, there is no real storage or bandwidth cost to the service provider.

[chinarut--2008]

hallelujah - i think y'all hit on all the great points - i did not value texting in the states and realized when it was 0.02/text (like the Philippines as stated above) - you just go nuts with it and discover the value for yourself. Now that I am back in the states, I can't feel but taken advantage of and in particular, feel like I need to convince others of the value of texting over n over again - it wouldn't be such an issue if rates were competitive with countries where texting is quite dominant esp for business use.

[kuyaz]

To add to the Philippines, the sender is the only person who gets charged for the message.

[jaysully2001]

Two things?
Cost of business ad Supply and Demand
The cost of text messaging can rise with everything else, supply and demand.
And the cost to support text messaging has risen. With more people sending text messages, more issues arise. I guarantee that the number of tech support calls concerning text messages has steadily risen. "Duh!"
This is asinine. Leave business to doing business, and politicians to lying, cheating, and sleeping around.

[The_Decider]

The only thing asinine are your comments.

If you think this has anything to do with natural supply/demand you are smoking crack or working for one of these companies.

A single text costs next to nothing. That 20 cents is 19.5 cents pure profit, and that is a generous estimate.

All they are going to do is get themselves more tightly regulated which is a good thing. In the US, with its greed first requirements, regulation is required.

Name one instance where a industry was deregulated and havoc didn't ensue. No one instance where deregulation actually worked to provide a vibrant, competitive environment where companies thrived as well as their customers.

[Michael Grogan]

So, jaysully2001, you don't care that the big 4 are engaging in illegal price fixing so they can rip you off? Any idea why we have anti-trust laws?

[brickman5721]

Some interesting reading I saw on Slashdot a while back: http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html
I am currently an undergraduate studying Computer Science, and in one of my classes we are studying wireless data networks. Today we discussed the GSM cell phone standard. As it turns out, SMS was created as a way of utilizing wasted space in the data transmission scheme. Put differently, SMS is being sent in space where, if SMS didn't exist, no data would be sent. Thus, the transmission of SMS messages is effectively costing the cell carriers nothing, and making them BILLIONS of dollars per year.

[brickman5721]

Some interesting reading I saw on Slashdot a while back: http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html
I am currently an undergraduate studying Computer Science, and in one of my classes we are studying wireless data networks. Today we discussed the GSM cell phone standard. As it turns out, SMS was created as a way of utilizing wasted space in the data transmission scheme. Put differently, SMS is being sent in space where, if SMS didn't exist, no data would be sent. Thus, the transmission of SMS messages is effectively costing the cell carriers nothing, and making them BILLIONS of dollars per year.

[contentcreator--2008]

SMS is like printing money, but more profitable. They raised rates because they could make even more money by doing so.

For comparison, let's figure out how much a voice call would cost, if SMS messaging reflected true transmission costs. A compressed voice channel is 64 KBit/sec each way. An SMS message is 160 bytes. So a voice channel is about 51 SMS messages per second. Billed on each end, for each direction, at $0.20/SMS message, that would be $40.80 --- PER SECOND, or almost $2500 per minute!!!! Yet how many minutes are there in your monthly plan? The prices charged for SMS messaging are just all profit, have nothing to do with actual cost, which is vanishingly small.

Econ 101 --- price depends not on cost, but on what the customer will pay.

[JCPayne]

Why not ASK the FCC about the high taxes they charge on Telecom bills.