While perusing CNN.com recently, I saw a list of “America’s Biggest Rip-Offs“. Number one on the list is text messaging (or SMS for those outside the U.S.).
The markup collected by mobile carriers such as Verizon and AT&T, according to CNN, is 6500%. While that sounds like a huge number, it’s true. Here in the United States, we pay around 20 cents per message, coming and going!
Additionally, since SMS takes virtually no overhead to service and deliver, this number is pure profit to our mobile carriers. This is why so many of us opt for text messaging bundles, whereby we pay $10 for 1000 message and so forth.
Apparently, the U.S. mobile carriers are trying to guarenteed a monthly revenue stream by making texts seem inexpensive by bundling them into packages.
I have been saying for years that SMS is way too expensive in the U.S. and it’s nice to see the mainstream media picking up the theme also. My hope is that with enough people complaining about it, change may happen.
(Photo credit: Flickr User Wayan Vota)
price in the UK is typically 10p or 15c, and again, the operators want you to buy bundles. MMS has never caught on, perhaps because each cost 50p or 75c!