[torsoboy]

Verizon is planning to start charging companies that send text messages to their subscribers $.03 per message that they send. Basically they are adding a $.03 postage stamp to deliver every message. This is on top of the $.20 it charges its customers to receive the messages.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/te...11text.html?em

Verizon says:

It is not a free service,” Mr. Nelson said. “It didn’t cost us zero to build or to buy spectrum rights.

Well duh! That is why you charge your customers already to use the service you friggin' nutjobs! Like they're not already raking in the millions charging $.20 a message?

All this will do is make companies (including mine) stop sending text alerts to Verizon customers.

/rant

[Laminar]

My dad finally consented to adding text messages to my and my sister's account on our family plan after running up a $40 text message bill a couple months in a row after Verizon bumped it to $0.20/message. And that was cutting back.

[Oisín]

20¢ per message?!

WTF? Are they insane? That’s more than we paid for text messages ten years ago (it was about 10¢ back then, now I pay 4¢ per message). I can’t remember what the rate was with the prepaid card I bought in the States this summer, but I’m pretty sure it was less than 20¢.

So now, the companies will be paying 23¢ per message, and the subscribers will be paying 20¢? That’s 43¢ per message, all in all.

And I thought our phone companies were greedy, bloodsucking bastards.

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

So now, the companies will be paying 23¢ per message, and the subscribers will be paying 20¢? That’s 43¢ per message, all in all.

Not quite... companys will now be charged 3¢ per message, and subscribers will pay 20¢.

Can you imagine the costs it would be to CNN to send score updates via text messages now at 3¢ a piece?

[zro]

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save [Verizon Wireless], but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.


I thought unsolicited incoming SMS messages were free.

[imitchellg5]

I don't understand.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by torsoboy 

Not quite... companys will now be charged 3¢ per message, and subscribers will pay 20¢.

Can you imagine the costs it would be to CNN to send score updates via text messages now at 3¢ a piece?

Oh. So they haven’t been paying for it before at all up until now?

That is so backwards. The companies send out messages for free, but the people who happen to receive these messages pay through the nose. And they’re probably also paying the companies a monthly fee for subscribing to this SMS feature, too.

The companies that send out mass messages should pay for sending them. Paying for receiving an SMS, on the other hand, is still very strange to me.

[andi*pandi]

Originally Posted by zro 

I thought unsolicited incoming SMS messages were free.

under verizon, no. We had to shut off text messaging on one phone because they didn't believe us when we said it was spam/wrong number. They still charged us.

I don't use texting all that much, but it was irksome that shutting it off was the only option.

[Chuckit]

It's pure, unadulterated corporate jackassery. The marginal cost of sending and receiving text messages is zero, which the Verizon rep even implicitly admits in the article ("It didn’t cost us zero to build or to buy spectrum rights"), but trying to trick people into paying more is easier for some people than creating value. I think it would be great if the other carriers would wall them off.

Incidentally, I used to be with Verizon, but I left several years ago because they just seem to hate everybody. T-Mobile has my loyalty for being the only mobile phone company that hasn't treated me like a turd.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by zro 

I thought unsolicited incoming SMS messages were free.

US Cellular has free incoming text messages for its subscribers.

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Oh. So they haven’t been paying for it before at all up until now?

That is so backwards. The companies send out messages for free, but the people who happen to receive these messages pay through the nose.

I don't think they hired a guy to sit there and punch out texts on a mobile phone when it's possible to send SMS messages through AIM for free - it'd be super easy to create a group of cell phone numbers as AIM contacts (AIM buddy name is +5145551234, where the 10 digits is the mobile number) and send out mass messages at no cost to the sender.

[Eriamjh]

I want a $0.03 discount.

[The Godfather]

I SMS from iChat, if possible, to avoid Verizon fees. I wonder if that's going to remain the same.

[CharlesS]

If this makes it more expensive for spammers to run up your cell phone bill by sending you SMS spam, I don't mind it at all.

[torsoboy]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Oh. So they haven’t been paying for it before at all up until now?

Companies have been paying for them, but is is a small fraction of a penny per message... the jump to 3 cents per message is a HUGE change. Think of it this way, if 100 people subscribe to someone's twitter messages it used to cost a couple cents to the sender... with the new costs it will now cost them $3.00 for this one twitter update. See how that works?

Each text message is limited to 160 characters... can you imagine paying 3 cents for less than .2 kb of data sent from you? This is an *extremely* high cost for such small amounts of data. Every 1 mb would cost you ~$153 to send. See the problem here? The problem isn't that there is a cost, it is that they are trying to charge a costs that is way to steep for something almost regarded as almost a commodity item at this point in time.

Originally Posted by Oisín 

That is so backwards. The companies send out messages for free, but the people who happen to receive these messages pay through the nose. And they’re probably also paying the companies a monthly fee for subscribing to this SMS feature, too.

Many businesses that offer text subscription services offer it as a free service to their customers. But yeah, some offer subscription services for a fee. I suppose people that pay for it feel it is worth the cost. That cost is now going to go up for Verizon customers though to help cover the cost of this added fee.

I'm in agreement with you on the cost to receive a message though... they charge $.20 per message to receive it, so that makes the cost $1024 per meg that you receive on your phone. Really freakin' outrageous.

Originally Posted by Oisín 

The companies that send out mass messages should pay for sending them. Paying for receiving an SMS, on the other hand, is still very strange to me.

Cell phones fees in general are very strange to me. When I make a call, they charge me and the other person (if that person is on a cell phone also). If someone calls me, I pay for the call regardless of whether it is calling from a cell phone or a landline. And they want to charge extra fees for everything. Crazy. That is why I don't have a cell phone.

[Big Mac]

You could go with MetroPCS, which has a flat-rate fee as low as $35 ($45 with tax) per month for unlimited incoming and outgoing calling across the United States, although they don't have nationwide coverage and their text messaging is unreliable. I'm considering dropping Verizon in favor of MetroPCS for my personal cell phone based on my satisfaction with the business line I just got.

[SSharon]

can't companies just email their texts to circumvent this?
Southwest airlines has this chart on their website


I use it to email my texts sometimes if I don't want to go over my quota.

[brassplayersrock²]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

If this makes it more expensive for spammers to run up your cell phone bill by sending you SMS spam, I don't mind it at all.

I've never had that problem thankfully. What I usually get are spam voice mails for carpet cleaning. I've called back the number a couple of times and told them that my number is on the do not call list, both times "the do not call list law does not say anything about a computer calling with a message. It has to be a person who speaks to you or leaves a message for it to work, not a computer"

[CharlesS]

That reasoning sounds very suspect. I'd call the FTC and file a complaint about this outfit if it were me.

[jokell82]

Verizon used to do this, and because of it most companies that sent out txt alerts simply wouldn't allow you to sign up with a Verizon phone.

And that's what will happen again. Then their subscribers will get pissed off at Verizon and things will go back to the way they were. This is just Verizon trying to sneak through charging double for one service. Assholes...

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

My dad finally consented to adding text messages to my and my sister's account on our family plan after running up a $40 text message bill a couple months in a row after Verizon bumped it to $0.20/message. And that was cutting back.

Your dad? I would have cancelled your cell phone contract, not rewarded you. Either that or told you to get a job and pay your own bills.

Otoh, I don't deal with Verizon. They are tied with ATT for the shittiest cell phone company in the US.

[Eriamjh]

Originally Posted by SSharon 

can't companies just email their texts to circumvent this?
Southwest airlines has this chart on their website


I use it to email my texts sometimes if I don't want to go over my quota.

Perhaps verizon is going to block or disable email texting? If not, that is a huge loophole they missed.

[SSharon]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

Perhaps verizon is going to block or disable email texting? If not, that is a huge loophole they missed.

and if they block email -> text they will also have to block instant message -> text. I just don't see them putting all of this past consumers. charging cnn to send out texts I can see because most people won't even know to complain, but people use the email and IM to text features often enough to raise a nice storm.

[olePigeon]

In case anyone was wondering, they're charing $1310 per megabyte of data.

[Captain Obvious]

Companies that send people text messages should be charged the entire cost of the messages. Since there is no way to verify the person getting the text requested or wanted it sent to them its unfair to charge those people for the advertising the message provides.

The problem is that the systems the cell companies use don't seen to be sophisticated enough to be able to differentiate from a text sent by a business and one sent from a family member or friend through IM or email. The vast majority of people I know have received unsolicited texts from businesses and had to shoulder the cost since the only way to stop them is to turn off texts altogether. Right now the problem is minimal but as cell phone advertising becomes more common and some businesses go from SMS to MMS the cost to consumers is going to go up. Further complicating this issue is that schools, universities, and municipalities are also beginning to use SMS to warn people of emergencies and as an EBS. The system also has to be able to filter those and decide who pays for the service.

I don't at all feel bad for the OP since he can gauge and decide if the cost is beneficial to his business but the fact Verizon doesn't seem to use that additional revenue to save its customers some cash is problematic.

[ctt1wbw]

Does anyone know what takes more bandwidth, voice or text?

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Does anyone know what takes more bandwidth, voice or text?

Seriously? A text is mere bytes of data. Maxing out at a few kb at *most*.

[brassplayersrock²]

It has been advised to me that texting during emergencies (when announced to not tie up phones) is better then trying to call out. the text will actually get through due to it's smaller data footprint.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Your dad? I would have cancelled your cell phone contract, not rewarded you. Either that or told you to get a job and pay your own bills.

It wasn't a reward as much as a way for him to save money.

I do have a job, and I pay for my own car, insurance, gas, food, rent, entertainment, college tuition, etc. My parents are okay paying for my $20/month voice+texts line on our family plan - it would be financially irresponsible for me to pay $50/month for my own plan, especially when I'd barely use a quarter of the minutes.

[Gee4orce]

I pity the poor saps that have been weaned onto this crap by the mobile networks.

Buy a Mobile Me subscription for $99/year and you've got push messaging of virtually unlimited message size, including attachments and images, and you can send as many messages as you like as often as you like. And it also works from your computer. and does a load of other cool stuff too.

WTF does anyone bother with SMS for anyway ?!

I really hope that when we get push notifications on the iPhone or background apps, that people will just move to a decent IM solution for messaging. Or use email, as I hinted above.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

Buy a Mobile Me subscription for $99/year and you've got push messaging of virtually unlimited message size, including attachments and images, and you can send as many messages as you like as often as you like. And it also works from your computer. and does a load of other cool stuff too.

$99 a year? Yeah, that’s more than I spend, all in all, on my cell phone, including both text messages and calls. No thanks. My phone can’t show attachments or images, anyway.

The point of text messaging is that you don’t have to be by your computer to use it. It’s e-mail for the non-iPhone-owning of us.

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by jokell82 

Seriously? A text is mere bytes of data. Maxing out at a few kb at *most*.

The reason I ask is simply rhetoric. Why charge fees for something that takes such less resources than voice? Next, they'll be charging fees to simply USE the voice function of a cell network, on top of the monthly subscription fee.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Why charge fees for something that takes such less resources than voice?

Because they can. Everyone bitches, but no one stops using them.

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Next, they'll be charging fees to simply USE the voice function of a cell network, on top of the monthly subscription fee.

Considering it kills your minutes just a receive a call, close enough.