[MikeD]

Sigh... Another reason to just be upset! I thought I had 200 available to send not send AND receive! Sigh.. Oh well. Just venting.

[Rumor]

Unless specified, all carriers are like that.

[MikeD]

I figured as much, it's just a bummer to just realize that. I never cared before because it was so darn hard to text anyways. Now with the iPhone, it's a snap! Can't wait for a really good iChat solution (Not AIM). I hope Apple is holding off on that one until their little notification push thing is all set to go...

[64stang06]

Yep, it sucks. Before AT&T merged with Cingular (the first time), they had unlimited for $9.99. Once Cingular took over, AT&T users were forced to either upgrade to unlimited for $19.99, or deal with the paltry 200 for $9.99. I was hoping once it became AT&T again that it would go back to the old way, but of course, they saw differently.

[imitchellg5]

Yeah, everyone is like that.

[mduell]

It really surprises you that SMS counting works the same way as voice minutes counting?

[Rumor]

What annoys me the most is what they charge for SMS bundles. Does it really strain the network so much to warrent the cost?

[greenG4]

Originally Posted by Rumor 

What annoys me the most is what they charge for SMS bundles. Does it really strain the network so much to warrent the cost?

No. A few bytes per text message is nothing compared to unlimited data on the iPhone. They found long ago that consumers were willing to pay for them. Until that changes, they won't.

[Rumor]

Damn stupid consumers!

[Big Mac]

I would never, ever pay a separate monthly text message fee. Ridiculous.

[MarkLT1]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I would never, ever pay a separate monthly text message fee. Ridiculous.

Same here. I dont text, and dont want to text, and dont want to pay for texts. Unfortunately I have several friends who refuse to listen to me when I say "Dont text me" and continue to send me texts. Unlike a phone call, I can't ignore it to not be charged the 25 cents or whatever.

What I ended up doing is blocking texts from my account. Annoying but it worked.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Yeah, everyone is like that.

Incorrect. Incoming texts are free with my carrier (Fido & its parent company Rogers), at least if they're from other mobile phones.

[MikeD]

And it wasn't always like that. A LONG time ago, in the early days of texting, I believe there were a few carriers who touted that you wouldn't have to pay for incoming texts.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Incorrect. Incoming texts are free with my carrier (Fido & its parent company Rogers), at least if they're from other mobile phones.

Yay for Canadian carriers.

[philm]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Yay for Canadian carriers.

And for UK carriers too, where there is no charging for incoming SMS. It seems illogical to do so, but I guess they do because they can.

[voodoo]

I would never pay for incoming SMS (let alone incoming calls!)

and I don't. Nor does anyone I know..

[CorpITGuy]

When Apple releases the new notification service this month, software makers like AOL will be able to release software that pushes updates (IMs?) to the phone even though the application is not running (AIM on the iPhone). This will make the SMS question a lot less important. I'm sort of surprised AT&T didn't fight Apple on that one. . . .

And yeah, it's crappy to charge for incoming texts, since you can't control who sends you one. It's all or nothing (either block SMS entirely or deal with paying for SMS solicitations and texts from idiots who send messages like this:

555-555-1212: hey man
555-555-1212: what's up
555-555-1212: guess what i did!
555-555-1212: i just got an iphone
555-555-1212: cool huh?

[tooki]

AT&T (the old one, pre-Cingular) did not charge for incoming SMS. Neither does pretty much any carrier outside USA.

That said... you should have read your contract (at least the summary on the back of the pamphlets) before signing.

I do consider the text messaging fees to be absurd. That an iPhone can transmit unlimited megabytes of data for free, yet be charged per message for transmissions of less than 200 characters is simply ridiculous.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Rumor 

Unless specified, all carriers are like that.

…in America.

Seriously. Paying for INCOMING sms and calls? Only in Amaraca™!

[Simon]

Originally Posted by tooki 

I do consider the text messaging fees to be absurd. That an iPhone can transmit unlimited megabytes of data for free, yet be charged per message for transmissions of less than 200 characters is simply ridiculous.

Well, the data is actually not really free. I — like many others — pay ~$30 for unlimited 3G per month. That said, I do agree that paying several ¢ for a 162 character message is by far too much. It's even more ridiculous if pay for receiving it. But I guess that can be explained by the differences between US and European cell phone markets.

[Gee4orce]

Originally Posted by Rumor 

Unless specified, all carriers are like that.

Not in this country ! There would be absolute uproar if it worked like that. Don't you guys in the USA also pay to receive phone calls ?!

Wow. you are really getting totally shafted by the networks there ! I'm surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit about this...

[Simon]

Yes, in the US you also use up your minutes for incoming calls.

In all fairness this is not as absurd as it might appear to some at first. In Europe the caller always pays many times more per minute if he/she calls a cell phone compared to calling a landline. In the US you don't. The receiver pays.

[CorpITGuy]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

Not in this country ! There would be absolute uproar if it worked like that. Don't you guys in the USA also pay to receive phone calls ?!

Wow. you are really getting totally shafted by the networks there ! I'm surprised there hasn't been a lawsuit about this...

Most European providers don't give unlimited data, though... they all manage to use gimmicks to make their money.

[iomatic]

Despite what you say, I would still recommend AIM.

You can mobile text message someone using (in the US) +1 and their phone number.

That way, you use the data network to send SMS and don't use this against your SMS count. Your contact gets SMS just as before, and charged for the message, as before.

You get messages back through this network, if they reply, or they can simply send you an SMS. Now, at least your outgoing messages don't count toward SMS. Someone must've pointed this out before?

[fodigg]

Originally Posted by MarkLT1 

Same here. I dont text, and dont want to text, and dont want to pay for texts. Unfortunately I have several friends who refuse to listen to me when I say "Dont text me" and continue to send me texts. Unlike a phone call, I can't ignore it to not be charged the 25 cents or whatever.

What I ended up doing is blocking texts from my account. Annoying but it worked.

How did you go about doing this? I was recently in an AT&T store considering an iPhone purchase and the salesperson insisted there was 1) no way to do this and that 2) "if I don't open the message, I won't be charged for it" despite the fact that that makes no sense because you can read it on the preview.

This is one of the things holding me back from buying an iPhone. I don't want to pay for the 200 SMS plan just so I won't get charged for incoming SMS.

I'd be very grateful if you could share how to go about disabling SMS on your account.

Thanks!

[paduck]

In the US, you also have unlimited local calling with landlines, something that was alien to Europe where you were charged for every single call. That has evolved to flat rate unlimited long distance from all the major carriers as well. There is no differentiation between calling a cell phone and a land line in cost per minute (although cell phone users have to pay out of their monthly minutes total). Bear in mind that weekends and evenings are free in most plans now ("evenings" being defined as 9pm or 10pm, up from 7pm just a decade ago). Likewise, cell phones simply charge in one minute increments, doesn't matter who you call in the US. They do soak you on international rates, something I notice O2 and others in Europe haven't done yet.

Caller pays is an interesting deviation from the US model. There is a lot to be said for it, although I think there is an argument that the pricing for outgoing calls is a little more complicated. It would be interesting if both models were offered in different pricing plans and see which one was more attractive to consumers.

It does annoy me that text messaging, which costs the carriers basically nothing, are being charged at up to 20 cents/each.

[eimeria]

No iPhone involved, but my wife has been getting a "subscription" to daily horoscopes via text messaging on her phone as a "service". Needless to say, she never signed up for this service, but she was getting charged for the subscription and the incoming text. She does not have a texting plan. After nearly a dozen calls to AT&T, they are no longer charging us for the service or the incoming message. The horoscopes keep coming though. AT&T is not able to see any text message subscriptions that is generating these annoying texts from coming in. At this point, we've grown frustrated with calling AT&T and are just deleting the messages as they come.

[CorpITGuy]

Originally Posted by eimeria 

No iPhone involved, but my wife has been getting a "subscription" to daily horoscopes via text messaging on her phone as a "service". Needless to say, she never signed up for this service, but she was getting charged for the subscription and the incoming text. She does not have a texting plan. After nearly a dozen calls to AT&T, they are no longer charging us for the service or the incoming message. The horoscopes keep coming though. AT&T is not able to see any text message subscriptions that is generating these annoying texts from coming in. At this point, we've grown frustrated with calling AT&T and are just deleting the messages as they come.

Same EXACT thing happened to me. Eventually the messages tapered off when whoever it was figured out they weren't getting paid. . .

[eimeria]

Originally Posted by CorpITGuy 

Same EXACT thing happened to me. Eventually the messages tapered off when whoever it was figured out they weren't getting paid. . .

We haven't been paying for them for almost 9 months. Still getting them regularly. Worst part is they aren't even the horoscope for either one of our signs.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by eimeria 

Worst part is they aren't even the horoscope for either one of our signs.

Don't worry. It's a horoscope so it really doesn't matter. Any sign is just as good as your sign.

[eimeria]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Don't worry. It's a horoscope so it really doesn't matter. Any sign is just as good as your sign.

You're right. My tea leaves are much more accurate than my horoscope.