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586 Comments
- greenvortex, on 06/15/2009, -22/+523Simple: there is no law preventing them from charging so much.
- mecanofan, on 06/15/2009, -56/+414If the Senate doesn't do anything, we're going to be paying $1 for a text message in a near future. The cell phone companies, just like credit card companies need to be regulated.
- purag66, on 06/16/2009, -20/+340Cue the comments about "Free market...companies have the right to set prices...nobody is forcing you to buy a good..." Oh wait too late.
How about this:
Dear Corporations,
If you do not like that your consumers are looking out for their own self-interests by exercising their powers through an elected official, then NOBODY IS FORCING YOU TO OPERATE A BUSINESS.
Thank you,
U.S. Citizens - pashdown, on 06/15/2009, -4/+305The amount of data sent for a text is insignificant in comparison to making a voice call. The cell phone companies should be encouraging texting rather than making it more expensive.
- arunforce, on 06/16/2009, -3/+274I'll give you a hint, because they function like a cartel.
They don't compete on price, they compete on phones/functionality. - inactive, on 06/15/2009, -11/+228$34 for 450 minutes, $30 for my iPhone Data, another $20 for unlimited text. Seems fair to me....
HURRRRRR - Slackdragon, on 06/16/2009, -6/+176It's an instance where, ideally, the free market would self regulate. Say Sprint charges 50¢ per text. Then T-Mobile undercuts them and offers a far more realistic 1¢ per text. If texting is important to you, you'd opt for T-Mobile. The loss in customers would force Sprint to drop their price.
What seems to have happened here is a concerted effort by the major carriers to up the price without fair price competition. If they all meet somewhere and say, "Let's agree to all, simultaneously, jack up the price of texting drastically", there's nothing the consumer can do about it. The free market system has been overstepped and at this point it becomes necessary for government regulation.
It's the same kind of BS you see with high-speed internet provision. Believe me, if I had the choice to vote with my wallet, Charter Communications would be circling the drain a little bit faster than it is now. But in the area I'm in, there really aren't any other options if you want 5Mb or greater download speeds.
I'm not one for The Government being everywhere in everything. But some situations are clearly in need of oversight. - Gnar04, on 06/16/2009, -11/+178idk my bff jill?
- WasabiBomb, on 06/16/2009, -1/+144If you read the article, you would've seen that the three big cell providers raised their text rates at almost the same time, by the same amount.
Now, either texts suddenly got more expensive to send... or they're not exactly in competition with each other.
You're damn right I want the government to look into it. - liquisoft, on 06/16/2009, -1/+130.01 cents is not the same as 1 cent.
.25 cents is not the same as 25 cents.
*facepalm* - barc0001, on 06/16/2009, -4/+100I pay $5 a month for the privilege of being able to send 200 text messages. Prepaid, that.s 2.5c each. If I don't prepay, they're 15 cents each. Each text, including network protocol overhead is less than half a kilobyte. At the same time, at my colo facility, I pay 40 cents for a GIGABYTE of traffic. Do explain. Please. Then again, these are phone people we're talking about. Everything's more expensive in Voice World than Data World, if they can get away with it. I recall one time sitting down with Sprint, talking about channel bandwidth for our PBX. They wanted to give us something like 4 ISDN lines together for 16 total channels of voice for some stupid thing (early 90s) like $6000 a month. I said to them that was ***** since we were getting a data T1 (which is equivalent to 23 voice channels and a d-sub channel) for $1500 a month from their competitor. They came back next day with a much better offer.
- bdbr, on 06/16/2009, -3/+99Modern telephone systems (including cell) have control channels and data channels. To set up a cell service, you have to have a control channel (which is lightly used for calling; its just short signaling messages). Text messages are sent over that control channel. Control channels aren't primarily designed for bulk data traffic, which is why the size of text messages is limited.
Since the cell companies have to have the control channel for calls, it costs nearly nothing for them to transport text messages. If they're using pricing to control the bandwidth utilization, they should say so. There is no evidence that the pricing is anything but collusion between companies to charge a lot for something that costs them very little. - WasabiBomb, on 06/16/2009, -18/+114And this is another example of the free market failing to benefit anyone other than the shareholders.
- skellener, on 06/16/2009, -4/+87It's ALL data!!! It's digital!! Voice, text, whatever...it's all just data period. There is no difference in a digital world.
- Animan351, on 06/16/2009, -1/+82The fact that they are all raising them at the same time for no reason outside of greed shows collaboration amongst them in doing so and is quite illegal in the U.S.
Competing companies in anything such as oil, electricity, cable etc are forbidden from collaborating together and raise prices etc in order to all make themselves more money because it's anti-competitive.
Imagine if every grocery store and butcher shop suddenly started charging an extra 100% for fruits, meat , and vegetables just for the hell of it. They would all clear more money, even if they didn't sell as much. - ratherstupid, on 06/16/2009, -5/+74@two above:
The problem is that there is no semblance of competition in the wireless market. They're charging what people are willing to pay.. for the moment. But consider that not having a cell phone isn't an option for a lot of people (I'm not referring to the 14 yr old in high school classes texting).
When Verizon increases their price to 40c a message and Sprint, AT&T, et al follow suit when the price of delivery not only hasn't changed but is a mere .0001c who are they going to jump to? Nobody. That's not competition that's price collusion.
Apply text messaging 'economics' to dozens of other industries and you have the American economy. - branndon, on 06/16/2009, -1/+63It's verizon math all over again!
- prisoner24601, on 06/16/2009, -3/+64"Free market...companies have the right to set prices...nobody is forcing you to buy a good..."
I'm about as free-market as anybody you'll meet, but cell service is NOT a free market. There are many specific factors that make this anything but, not the least of which is the exclusive right to use a particular frequency licensed by the FCC for a fee.
People who try to chime in with "companies should be allowed to charge whatever they want / what are you a communist?" etc. need to take a basic economics class.
They (like their landline cousins and cable TV operators) are given unique rights to use resources (public airwaves, city-wide exclusive franchises for cable TV, etc.) and in response they MUST be regulated and "kept honest."
This is NOTHING like opening a donut shop where if you charge $8.00 for an apple fritter another guy can open a competing shop down the street. It's like cities give Dunkins and Winchel's the only two licenses to make donuts it town. They do it for rational reasons, but they still have to keep an eye on the oligopoly they are putting in place. - vernsan, on 06/16/2009, -2/+59Wouldn't you consider text to be part of the data network? If they happen to use that it takes considerable data to send across their network then I believe there's something wrong.
- robertisaar, on 06/16/2009, -17/+67the definition of the free market...
- metalgel, on 06/16/2009, -2/+50http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/8742/idkmybffji ...
- inactive, on 06/16/2009, -3/+50In the earlier cell phones that had texting ability, you had analog voice and simple digital comms for texting. Now in the ALL DIGITAL era, it doesn't matter if you talk, send a message via text or if you use the internet........guess what, it is ALL data.
It costs less in network bandwidth to allow texting than to hold a conversation.....there is no reason for the extra charges.
I can't wait until all these "Fees" and "Surcharges" go away and you buy monthly service and get to do anything you want, with data caps <--I will give them data caps unless you pay extra for no caps. - lalalalamppost, on 06/16/2009, -3/+47Once upon a time this law was enforced:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Act - dagamer34, on 06/16/2009, -8/+52Texts are NOT part of the data network. They ride on the same signals which your phone uses to ping towers about their location. That's why limit on the number of characters in a message is not arbitrary, but fixed across all devices, towers, and companies throughout the world.
- Nerys, on 06/16/2009, -6/+49Problem is there are enough morons with mommy and daddy footing the bill to RUIN it for the rest of us who CAN NOT afford it.
- jasdf, on 06/16/2009, -0/+42Scientist says texting is four times more expensive than receiving scientific data from the Hubble Space Telescope:
http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html - Arachnivore, on 06/16/2009, -1/+41SMS was built into the cellphone infrastructure long before it was made accessible to consumers. It has been around since the early 80's as a way for cellphone companies to use the excess bandwidth to transmit internal messages FREE OF COST.
Imagine if a company came along and started selling small, dirt-cheap SMS devices without a contract and charged $5/month for unlimited SMS. The cellphone companies' revenue would drop through the floor. The only way they can keep that from happening is to collaborate and make sure not to engage in SMS price wars. Then all they have to do is keep any newcomers from messing with their little plan by offering cheap SMS. That part is easy since the big phone companies control all of the infrastructure.
I hope they get their asses handed to them. - madponyboy, on 06/16/2009, -1/+40I'm already paying $30 for unlimited data plan, yet how is SMS not included? it IS data.
- CIAVT, on 06/16/2009, -3/+41I'd rather have a unlimited text only plan and pay for my talk time by the minute. I hate talking to people when a simple text message will suffice.
- luke255, on 06/16/2009, -6/+41.25 cents. To me that means a quarter of a cent. I know it means 25 cents. Is that some illogical US thing like m/d/y or just a typo...?
Oh yeah and drop the price of SMS =) - LogicalWisdom, on 06/16/2009, -2/+37The cost to send SMS messages is essentially free for the cell phone companies. They discovered that they could make use of the control channel, which already existed and has so little overhead that millions of people sending text messages has little noticeable effect on their resources.
The real question though, is why people complain, if you think it's too expensive (and yes it's ridiculously expensive) then stop using it, they'll quickly scramble to lower the price until they reach what they think is their best profit sweet spot. The fact that so many people use the service, and continue to fork over money tells them that the price is too cheap, which is why they keep raising the price. - insomniasystems, on 06/16/2009, -1/+35"You do understand the difference between .01 cents and 1 cent don't you?"
- wc3452, on 06/16/2009, -3/+34Sorry, but the free market is inherently greedy and favors the rich. The free market works best in perfectly competitive markets, but the cell phone industry is most certainly not perfectly competitive.
- Plopfish, on 06/16/2009, -1/+31It's called collusion and is illegal in the U.S.
- Arachnivore, on 06/16/2009, -2/+32They don't compete, they just pretend to compete.
- Hu99, on 06/16/2009, -1/+30But then you have to talkk to them. A text eliminates that tedious chat factor.
- wc3452, on 06/16/2009, -1/+30...but it does own the airwaves
- splorpdotorg, on 06/16/2009, -2/+30@Animan351
It's called collusion and it is illegal, if you can prove it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collusion - dagamer34, on 06/16/2009, -1/+28There are PLENTY of laws preventing them from doing any type of collaborating to increase prices, especially when it's in such a short period of time (the article cites a 1 month period for all 4 major cell phone companies to raise texting prices).
It's just not allowed. - nigelmansell, on 06/16/2009, -3/+30at the end of the hearing, nothing will be done except for phone companies giving special texting discount to Senators
- mockamonkey, on 06/16/2009, -4/+30When have text messages ever ranged from a penny to quarter? The lowest i've seen is 10 cents to send, and that was BEFORE those AT&T/Cingular ***** bumped it up to 15.
- tonmil, on 06/16/2009, -0/+26SMS and Data prices suck.
The price to purchase a phone is fine. The price to use a phone is too high. - Entroper, on 06/16/2009, -0/+26It's the Best Buy pricing model. Make the cheap phones free and the expensive phones cheap; these are your loss leaders. Make the basic monthly rates just barely enough to cover your expenses, so that the base cost sounds low to the consumer; this is the laptop sold at razor-thin margins to compete on big-sticker price. Then charge an arm and a leg for any minutes over your plan, or added features like texting and internet, which cost you very little by comparison. These are your Monster cables and your ink cartridges, where your bread really gets buttered.
This is just the natural tendency of the market -- to exploit the ignorance of its customers -- and it's what the Internet will eventually become without neutrality. You won't have "internet access" anymore, you'll have access to the services that you pay for. Don't like bandwidth caps? It's not much longer until we all get excited about keeping our rollover bytes. - Xugg, on 06/16/2009, -1/+25.25 cents = 1/4 of 1 cent?
- arohaninc, on 06/16/2009, -2/+26Govt has no right to intervene in a competitive marketplace. On the other hand, if it seems that the market is not functioning competitively than they need to intervene. Cartels are illegal in this country and there are antitrust laws. Capitalism is not the same as anarchy
- Nerys, on 06/16/2009, -8/+31Not true. we have hardware lock in. The barrier to entry is if you have a nice expensive phone your STUCK with your provider. The big 3 are Verizon AT&T and sprint.
YOU CAN NOT MOVE a phone between any of those 3. Period.
Second you have geography. for some people only ONE PHONE provider "works" where they need it to work.
In theory verizon and sprint should not have this problem since they both offer free roaming but if you roam too much they can you.
Next you have a cheap service that everyone gets USED TO. that people begin to DEPEND ON and then wham they skyrocket the price.
THIS should not be permitted. They CREATED a need and then punished everyone for using it.
Next up free market.
its IMPOSSIBLE for a cellular market as we know them to be a free market.
They all need to use PUBLIC AIRWAVES of a restricted amount. this LIMITS the competition. you also have a MASSIVE barrier to entry (towers land fees LICENSE fees for the airwaves)
This digital tv farse should make that clear to you. the ONLY reason we went "digital" was so they could sell the bandwidth for 20 billion dollars. yet again consumers screwed gov and corp victorious.
and lastly you have this. THEY ARE USING PUBLIC AIRWAVES.
those airwaves BELONG TO US not them. They have access to them in theory at OUR discretion.
with that privilege should come some restrictions and controls. - LocalDocal, on 06/16/2009, -0/+23"that's gotta take the prize as the weakest argument on this subject.... really!? stop texting?...."
Hmm, you really have to wonder about the state of things when you suggest to someone to stop using a cell phone to send 160-word messages, and they speak to you as if you told them to stop breathing. And they get dugg up.
Anyway, I have to disagree with you, Abadjay.
The world at large is addicted to texting and stopping doesn't appear to be something people can handle.However, the real issue at hand as the article describes is that there seems to be an issue with telecommunication companies working together. Unfortunate as it is, they all seem to be making too much money to care about competing.
It's a shame; if acts like these makes people leave their carrier more often, then perhaps we would begin to see real competition. Unfortunately, though, the most likely thing to make people change their carriers is not service, but a cell phone, which is why companies compete for cell phone exclusivity, but don't give a damn about anything else. - skellener, on 06/16/2009, -2/+25Other than the fact that you are moving around from cell tower to cell tower, it should be no different than your internet connection at home. It's all data. I can browse the web, use Skype, IM, watch a video. Cell carriers are scamming the public about "separate" fees for voice, data, text. It's all the same. They need to separate content from connection. You should be able to do what you want however you want with whatever device you want with one fee for connecting to the network. When the carrier controls all of it, it's a conflict of interest and consumers get screwed.
- MrColdheart, on 06/15/2009, -10/+32I think being anti-government is great when the government isn't elected by the people (example being royalty) and represented of the people.
If you can remember as far back as the past eight years every single person who is against government now where very supportive of its actions then.
The reason why people are asking for government intervention is because of regulations (look up the root word of governing)
And don't you think it's hysterical that your against government help but are pushing for corporate help?
>"or start your own company with a competing technology."
I'm telling you now your full of it if you believe your own words. I'm convinced the majority of you anti-government people are just against a Liberal government.
I'm willing to bet my Digg account the majority people who want 'less' government just want the people they voted for in office.
Your no more anti-government than someone who's football team lost is anti-football.
- thomas040, on 06/16/2009, -13/+34that's gotta take the prize as the weakest argument on this subject.... really!? stop texting?....
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