Telus I freaking loooove you! (ya right!)

I blogged about Telus & Bell’s plan to charge 15 cents for incoming text starting in August in an earlier post.

The other day at work Evan and I were talking on Gmail (our usual ritual) and he mentioned that he sent a complain about the new SMS policy to Telus but received a generic email reply. Feeling assholish I decided to use his message but add some stuff on top of it to see what kind of reply I get back from the wonderful company called Telus.

Since my work deals directly with telecommunications, I’m quite familiar with the technology (ok mainly GSM but some CDMA as well). I flipped off a few technical terms, not expecting the Telus technician who gets paid oh $8/hr to know what they mean. Here’s what I wrote:

Hello,

I am writing to inform you of my disgust with the new text charges you will be introducing in August. Telus cell phone rates are already among the highest in the world, with your “system access fee” and all. Now you propose to double charge customers for using your system? Telus claimed that every day 50 million text messages are sent across Canada. There are 3 major carriers in Canada – Telus, Bell, and Rogers. So this means each day roughly 16.67 million text messages are sent on Telus network across Canada. Considering there are 10 provinces and 3 territories in Canada, the exact number of text message being sent each day per province/territory certainly cannot exceed more than 5 million. Considering that each SMS character is 7 bytes and that an SMS message can contain a max of 160 character. 7 bytes * 160 = 1120 bytes. Adding all the overheads each SMS message is merely few hundred kB at most. Now considering that on a CDMA network, BTS is connected to BSC which is conencted to the MSC. At the MSC differentiates between SMS and voice calls and routes them to either SMSC for SMS or PSTN for voice. All these infrastructural are ALREADY built inCanada and are connected through multiple T1’s. Currently SMS uses only two T1 channels out of all possible 24 channels. Are you telling me that an expansion of infrastructure is needed due to an overwhelming amount of text messages per day? Currently T1 is about $1000/month in the US. Say it costs more here in Canada, about $2000/month, due to economy of scales. $2000/month to add an additional T1 which will provide additional 24 wire channels. Please allow me to do a quick calculation…

Current rate
16,670,000 text messages per day * 0.15 to send = $2,500,500 $2,500,500 * 30 day = $7,501,500

That’s $7.5 million coming into Telus just from text message along each month!!!

Rate in August
16,670,000 text message per day * 0.15 to send + 16,670,000 text message per day * 0.15 to receive = $5,001,000

By adding this 15 cent to receive a text message, all of a sudden Telus is pocketing an additional $7.5 million each month!

And an additional T1 costs about $2000/month?

Clearly there’s something obviously wrong here. I believe I just demonstrated that 30 cents per message is just plain ridiculous. Heck, even 15 cents per message is too much. Furthermore, people can’t choose who they receive text messages from, so charging them for their incoming text message is extortion. Perhaps in a few years Telus will start charging not only “airtime” fee for incoming call but additional “receiving” fee as well because the amount of voice calls have tripled. The proposed 15 cent charge is just a way Telus is forcing people to sign up for the $5 or $10 text message plan. $5 for text message plan here, $8.99 for system access fee here, $10 for voice mail and caller ID here, soon all the add-ons actually cost more than the “actual” voice plan.

Needless to say, I have been extremely unhappy with my Telus service, mostly due to the lack of value for my money I receive from my plan. I realize this is a plague of the Canada mobile industry in general. However, there are a few more affordable mobile companies out there. When my 3 year contract with Telus ends on August 24th of this year, you will not find me with Telus anymore. I’m transferring my business elsewhere and I’m planning to convince more people to do the same.

Thank you,

A pissed off Monkey

604-xxx-xxxx

Today I got a wonderful reply from Telus:

Hello Mr. Monkey,

Thank you for your e-mail response; we appreciate that you have taken the time to provide us your feedback.

TELUS is dedicated to providing exceptional service and we monitor client feedback to further improve our client relations. It is feedback, such as yours, that continues to guide us in this commitment, and our goal is to ensure that your experience with TELUS remains a positive one.

Please note that the upcoming change to the billing of incoming text messages will affect all new and existing Mike, PCS post-paid and Pay & Talk clients who currently do not subscribe to a text messaging feature bundle. Clients who subscribe to a text messaging feature bundle will continue to
receive free incoming text messages originating from another wireless handset. Any client that currently sends 20 messages or more will already benefit from being on our lowest bundle, which is $3 per month for 30 outgoing messages and unlimited incoming messages.

TELUS offers a variety of cost effective options to best suit your text messaging needs. To view the details of our current text messaging bundles, we would encourage you to please visit the link below:

- http://telusmobility.com/bc/plans/pcs/bundles.shtml

If you would like to add a text messaging feature or bundle, please use our self-serve options as outlined below:

1) Login to www.mytelusmobility.com
2) Click on “manage account(s)” on the left-hand side of the page
3) Ensure you are at the Account Level – Select the radio button beside that line that reads “N/A” and choose “submit”
4) Click on “e.care” from the left-hand side menu
5) From the eCare home page, select “add/change feature” located under “manage plans” or “plan”. If you have more than one wireless number, choose the wireless number, and click on “retrieve”
6) Select the feature(s) you wish to add and click on “confirm’.

As always clients will remain able to block incoming messages, either through www.telusmobility.com, through our Client Care Team via the number below, or using the contact us form mentioned above. This remains the alternative to those who wish to receive no charges for the service. If you would
prefer to disable your text messaging, and you have registered at mytelusmobility.com, you may use the self-serve options to disable the text messaging functionality on your account. Please follow the steps below:

1) Login to www.mytelusmobility.com
2) Click on “manage account(s)” on the left-hand side of the page.
3) Ensure you are at the Subscriber Level rather than the Account Level. Click on the button beside the wireless number that you wish to access and select “submit”.
4) Click on “send a message” at the top right-hand side of the screen, beside “log out”.
5) When the screen populates, select “Preferences” from the bottom menu bars.
6) Then, on the right-hand side of the page, un-click your preferences and click “apply”.

Please note that this will not prohibit the receipt of Premium Text Messages, which are messages sent or received, that are related to contests or promotions, or any text messaging activity in which a user chose to participate in, or manually sign up to receive. An example of this type of activity
is voting for contestants on the TV show Canadian Idol, or signing up with a third party vendor to receive daily jokes, horoscopes etc. Rates vary by the program/vendor and they are charged on a pay-per-use basis. Please note that premium messages are not included with your rate plan or any text
messaging bundle.

If you require further information via e-mail, please use the Contact Us form to resubmit your inquiry as account verification is required. Alternatively, please call our Client Care Team toll free at 1-866-558-2273 (if in Greater Vancouver, please dial 604-291-2355).

Thank you for contacting TELUS.

Sincerely,

N. Carter
e.Care Specialist
TELUS

Splendid, this is just wonderful. If you’re like me, you should consider switching. I’m considering switching to Virgin Mobile. Let’s switch together and show Telus!