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.

[btljooz]

Why not simply call a spade, "a spade"? The 'big four' are doing no less than a fine job of pulling off *PRICE FIXING* and _should_ be made to explain themselves at the very _*LEAST*_!

[chash360]

Finally some one in congress has pointed it out, took them long enough! I have been screaming about it from the start. Text messaging does not cost the Service provider any bandwidth or storage charges.

The messages are sent in the background when bandwidth is available, in the spare space of the protocol, the protocol between the cell site and your device, not even utilizing a full voice channel.

The message is stored on the senders phone until it 'pings' the cell site updating its info, to which the message is transferred only if the recievers phone is on the network. Then it is transferred to the reciever's device, and the service provider does not have to provide any message storage beyond a minor cache.

From some of the messages I have recieved there is not even an accuracy check going on in the protocol, as I have recieved partially garbage messages, while having strong signal, which just lends credence to the service providers not even providing temporary storage for the message, not even to check that it was accurately recieved or delivered.

I wish they had included the question about voicemail? Why is it they can provide (force) you to have voice mail service for 'free', when it does take up bandwidth, and requires a great deal of storage infrastructure and expense. And it requires them to provide land line accessible voicemail lines to check messages from landline phones.

Its greed, its price fixing, and they know it. If the FCC would just approve and allocate a large enough chunk of unlicensed wireless spectrum for general public use, and manage the spectrum by device compliance to the standards, we could eliminate the service providers altogether. I think their biggest over head labor cost is just the billing dept. Manufacturers would be happy to make devices, knowing they did not have broker deals with service providers to support them, and I would be happy to pay full up front cost for a device, if I did not have a monthly service plan payment.

After all its really the devices that provide the service, its not like those old black-and-white movies with some operator plugging in a patch cord.

Lets have some big class action lawsuits, and return their gouged fees back to the customers.

[btljooz]

ZDNet has a more appropriate title in addition to more detailed info. See it here:

Sen. to carriers: Why do text messages cost $1,300 per meg?

http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3991&tag=nl.e620

[crossuab]

Something fishy is definitely going on. When there are hurricanes and other natural disasters, they encourage people to send text messages because they put lest strain on the networks. If that is truly the case, then why the rise in costs for text messages? I recently switched to AT&T when I purchase the iPhone 3G. When i was with t-mobile I paid $5 for 400 messages. At AT&T, I only get 200 messages for the same price. If I want more than 200 message, I have to pay $15 for 1500 messages and I don't need that many. I pay $30 for unlimited internet. Text messages should be included in that.

[ofmyony]

I think it is wrong for these companies to charge for texting at all. You pay for the use of their service they should first apply the cost of the text message to your minutes. Example every text message should take up 1 minute of your calling minutes. Unless you get a plan with unlimited texts or a specified amount. Phone companies are taking advantage of people who do not pay for text plans and do not use many minutes. It is outrageous and consumers should not be forced to pay such outrageous prices. Some companies used to follow the previous example and changed it once they found out how popular and how much money they could make to charge per text.

I hope the Senate takes action and force the companies to give back to those they take advantage of. Some will say it is supply and demand, well ok just don't take advantage of consumers by price gouging.

Plus they charge you when you receive a message and you didn't ask for it. Totally absurd and totally wrong. Incoming messages and calls should not be charged, period!

[Sweetpatootie]

The only time we seem to get things changed for the better is when it finally affects a congressman or his family.

[chilehead9]

What burns me is that I get charged for receiving spam text messages - there's no option to decline receipt of them, just a bill that arrives. Of course the phone companies won't do anything to prevent that sort of abuse, they will keep making money off of it.

Of course, charging twice for the same service is nothing new to them - they are still pursuing their dream of charging companies like amazon and google a second time for their internet bandwidth, even though they already pay for it at their end, and the customers pay for the same connection on their end. What's not to love about getting paid three times for letting copper wires carry someone else's work, and intruding on that data and people's private correspondence to give copies to corrupt government agencies and checking for possible copyright infringements on behalf of untrustworthy corporations?

[Rod Roddy]

High texting costs, is one of the reasons why people use word shortcuts like "L8r", instead of "Later" Yes, its faster to type, but also costs less too. I hope this companies are fined or made to lower their rediculous fees.

[TV James]

I think someone once said that if you charged for music downloads at the same data rate that you charged for text messaging it would cost $6,000 per song and not $1.99. Let's see texting costs eliminated.