If you’re a Canadian cellphone user you’re probably familiar with the year old policy of charging 15 cents per incoming text message if you are not on a text plan. If I recall it correctly, they started doing such in the states as well. Last July I blogged about this ridiculous policy and how cellphone companies cannot justify for charging such fee.
From my old post (my complain letter to Telus):
…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….
…By adding this 15 cent to receive a text message, all of a sudden Telus is pocketing an additional $7.5 million each 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.
Today I came across an article on CBC about how research have estimated that cellphone companies markup 4900% on some text messages.
From the article:
It costs a cellphone company a mere third of a cent to transmit a text message that it charges customers as much as 15 cents to send, estimates a University of Waterloo professor.
“Some people think it’s not a big deal,” Srinivasan Keshav told CBC Radio’s The Current Thursday. “But others might think that the markup of 5,000 per cent is a bit excessive.”
I was so damn right about this “extra” fee. It’s basically another way for the cellphone companies to increase profit. I’m so mad that us Canadians are paying such high price for cellphone plans and all the unnecessary extra fees (i.e. text message, network fee, 911) and no politician is doing anything to help us. I thought politicians are suppose to represent us? The Canadian government should be ridiculed for allowing Canadian cellphone carriers charging these extra fees and not protecting its citizens from such unfair practice! Arrrr!
i think everyone is getting a little fed up with text messages being so expensive. I use http://www.smstextnow.com to send text messages for free. I also can set it up to send to groups which is handy for work, group meetings and for sports teams. this way I don’t have to worry about the cost of sending these messages and it’s much easier to manage. I will continue to use sites such as this until the pricing gets back in line with what’s fair.
I read a similar article to what you wrote when those fees were rolled out last year – pretty much billions of text messages have to be sent to cause any kind of impression on the networks. That’s staggering. And to think we ooh and ahh to get a $20 bundle for voicemail! and callerID! and 2500 text messages!
But they have such a chokehold on the customers… says the girl who’s going to get a iPhone soon and somehow have two Internet connections to her name + one at work. We are such suckers.
I totally agree. It’s especially ridiculous because you can’t choose whether you want to receive text messages or not from certain sources. I can’t “deny” a text message because I don’t want to pay for it.
By the way, I have a “Value Pack” for $16 or whatever for texts, call display and voicemail. This is extortion.
Yeah, we’re charged here for it too, but I have an unlimited plan for $5/month.
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