Why Do Text Messages Cost So Much?

Lack of competition, they hit the nail right on the head. Just wait until Sprint and TMO get bought up and there is just Verizon and ATT left.

Here in Canada, we only have Telus, Bell and Rogers. Each offer a “retail” version to infer there is more competition than there really is.
We get even worse deals than the US carriers offer. Text has always been expensive, and data is worse. Rogers doesn’t even offer an unlimited data plan the way that AT&T does! We pay $30/month for 6GB of data, and even that plan was only offered for a limited time. The new competitors cannot hope to make a go of it when the incumbents have such a huge lead in tower real estate, market penetration, and cheap fibre optic backbone supply.

#3 – Fat_Anarchy – …I was shocked over how badly they screw you guys for cell phones.

It’s not the only area where they rip you off… broadband Internet connections are ridiculously overpriced. Oligopoly capitalism at work.

I got a iPhone for my son. The price…$99. The sales tax; $47.25. None of this was disclosed on the website where you buy the phone, until the very end, when you pay for it. Reason? They “value” the 3G phone at $499, but Apple says they SELL for $99. What BS. I called ATT and complained, they knocked $25 off of my bill to shut me up. I took it, knowing I was not ever going to pay only the tax on the $99.
Why would they overcharge the tax? I think there is a kickback from the government.

#3 Fat Anarchy

Monopolies are NOT capitalistic…as much as the republicans would like you to believe.

Corporate cronyism NOT capitalism defines the United States economy.

#9 – No. It’s not inflation. It’s greed. North America is just about the only place in the world where you pay to send AND to receive a message. Where you pay to place AND to receive a call.

Text messaging is just about the cheapest thing a phone company can offer. It utilizes otherwise wasted bandwidth as it is transmitted in the empty spaces between voice traffic.

I’m currently in SE Asia where it costs me NOTHING to send a text message and it costs me NOTHING to receive a text message.

The simple truth is the phone companies charge so much because nobody complains! It is greed, pure and simple.

# 9 LibertyLover said, in part:

“No, it’s called inflation.”

No, it’s called gouging — charging more than ten times the cost of providing a service, then raising the price to more than twenty times the cost, when the costs haven’t risen significantly, as Mr. Kohl mentioned in his remarks.

25 cents a text message for me, US Cellular.
Consumers being ripped off, what’s new. Just like there is not much difference in comparable plan prices among providers. You would think someone would compete on price, but they don’t have to unless the consumers says, “enough!”

anti-trust, price fixing, anti-trust, price fixing, anti-trust, price fixing….
it’s everywhere from the food you eat, to what you watch, to what you pay for in our so-called “open” market. It’s not about supply and demand, it’s about how much can be squeezed out of us…

Gouging the consumer for all their worth, is apparently the order of the day now. And it’s only been getting worse, as new markets open up. Oil (or rather gasoline) prices are rocketing up again, even though supply is up and demand is down. It’s the speculators on Wall Street that are once again (as last year) buying up the oil stock, to take advantage of even a hint of early economic recovery. Which they will probably be responsible from squashing.

Of all the cabinet offices that have been created or proposed, over the last few terms. What America really needs is a Pricing Czar. An office to oversee the greed of corporations tendency to set prices, “what the believe the market will bare”, rather than a price with a fair profit margin.

The Texting “market” is a good example. It only cost a carrier about .3 cents per message. But they now charge 60 times what it cost the carriers to provide. You can bet some top telco executives are getting sloppy huge bonus increases over this. And maybe some of this profit is trickling down to the common shareholders (but don’t expect much). Which is another thing a Pricing Czar could be looking into and regulating. Executive pay and bonuses.

These clowns have been setting themselves up as minor kings, in the US. Sitting on multiple boards, and voting huge salaries for each other’s CEOs and such. Regardless of whether their company is doing good or poorly, for their presence. And the common shareholders have no power at all in determining what they’re paid. They’re just suppose to take it in the ass, and like it. In order to see any dividends at all, from their investment. Try investing elsewhere, and its the same thing. Cause the CEO and friends, of the prior company, are probably sitting on the next company’s board as well. It’s become a dirty little society of boardroom barons. Who set all their own pay scales, and bonuses. And sacrifice the jobs of useful employees, in order to maintain their own pay raises. Driving companies into the ground, like the US Automakers, and large banks.

Back in the days of the infamous “trusts”, anti-trust laws were enacted to prevent greedy and power men from monopolizing industry and setting their prices to milk the US economy dry. But decades later, few if any anti-trust decisions have been leveled at any companies. Resulting in their run-away pricing, and huge internal debts. Leaving customers and investors, holding the [empty] bag.

A pricing czar. Lol

#11, In some things, yes. I know our grocery bill has increased 50%+.

Remember that Bush II took Energy and Food out of the inflation calculations.

As an early adopter of text messaging in Canada. I can say without question that the pricing for texting has increased over the years, not decreased. Early packages included unlimited texting messages.

My understanding of the technology is that the text messages are sent out over the backend channels of the wireless network that are used for managing the infrastructure. Not even utilizing the voice channel capcities… so I would think, well obviously they are running out of this backchannel space.

But of course, I just came back from France/Italy I there wasn’t one time I could say I was in a public place with people around that I could not find more than one person text messaging. There is no way we are close to the text messaging capacities that these countries are utilizing.

Because the world is chock full of really stupid people with nothing important to say who are willing to pay far too much to say it over a “service” that is just a control link used by the cell system that must be there for the system to work at all. So, people are paying for and “additional feature” that is an inherent part of the cell phone system and which costs the cell company virtually nothing more to implement than basic cell service (just hard drive storage of the messages).

I need to add that some of those stupid people are the same ones who talk about nothing while remaining parked for 50% of a short left turn arrow or who cause accidents while talking or texting about nothing while driving. My mesage to them: STFU! and pay attention to your driving.

I’m just disappointed the video left out the best part.

I love to watch multi-billionaire, corporate CEOs calmly tell outrageous, bald-faced lies to Congress and by extension, to every single one of the American people.

The very best part is when you can tell from their expressions and the tones of their voices, they could care less everyone knows they’re flat-out lying.

I find such breathtaking arrogance endlessly fascinating.

The guy has the Milwaukee Bucks and Kohl’s Department stores. If he thinks these guys are colluding for high profits, how about he start his own cell phone company, and drive those guys out of business?

I also notice that the airlines charge the same amount for flights, all at exactly $227, raising and lowering their prices within hours of each other. Is this collusion too?

Is Congress stupid? do we really have to have these hearings and investigations just to figure out that the cell companies are just trying to make more money off customers on features they use the most of?
But, you would have to be a idiot to pay per text message if you are a big text user. Does this even apply to anyone? Maybe Congress should figure out why I had to cancel my landline because it costs twice as much as my cell plan! Maybe Congress should stop trying to control the retail markets and let the stupid consumer decide what is worth it or not.
Seems to me that most consumers would eventually drop texting if it became too expensive. Frankly I think Congress misses the hole problem with cell phone companies. That is all the gimmicks for free phones or reduced phone costs. Their is nothing for free as we have seen time and time again. Make it so we buy the phone and pick the plan. Make it their is no contracts! Now that would be doing something Congress!

remember in a consumer based market, screwing your customers is always best for you and why care about your customers!? they are just loaded with cash..

I call distraction!noone really cares about this because they haven’t slowed down texting at all. anyone who texts alot doesn’t even bat an eye over 29.99 a month for basically a service that costs nothing to implement for the telcos. If everyone quit paying 29.99 a month then you would see the price drop like a rock. If you don’t like it, don’t use it!

sms messages should be very cheap because no additional equipment is required from the cellular providers in order to supply this service. Another service that should be cheap it’s the text2land.com service that allow you to send sms messages to landline phones.