Senators smackdown US Carriers over soaring text messaging rates
Looks like the four major US cell phone providers have been caught with their proverbial hands in the consumers pocket. Recently, Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the antitrust subcommittee, sent a letter to the four major US Carriers (AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile) asking them to explain why text messaging rates have doubled over the past 3 years when the cost to send them has remained the same. Seems like the Senator also noticed that when one carrier raises costs, they all follow suit. Aren’t these carriers supposed to be competing against each other to lower rates and not working together to raise them? So far none of the carriers have not responded. Not surprising.
Capitalism is the economic system in which the means of production are owned by private persons, and operated for profit
Crazy senator
what the need to do is what what they do in frnace make it iligit to sell locked phones
that mesurea alone would spure competition
@ backbeat the FDA is corrupt the drug companis are in bed with em
I think this is a valid letter. It is using the same data as when you are browsing the web. They make the packages contain less texts and higher cost when for going over.
@ all the gas complainers. He doesn’t need to send a letter to the gas companies they have already said that the cost to refine the oil is higher the barrels are more expensive. Get it through your thick skulls we need to stop worrying about oil and start looking at some other solution. Other countries are used to paying more and now we have to until we have a better solution.
I have two solutions that both would work in the free market system that would fix these darn messaging overcharge standards.
Solution One: All companies just need to charge let’s say anywhere from $15 to $30 extra a month to make unlimited messages part of each of their rate plans getting rid of those nasty $.20 per message overcharges . No complaints right?
Solution Two: All companies need to stop offering messaging packages and just charge $.05 to $.15 for each message sent or recieved. Fixes the issue right?
With all wireless providers offering messaging packages of one type or an other overage charges have become standardised. Who is to say that this is wrong or a bad thing. Having industry standards often dont take anything away from the free market. Just like 2yr contracts, 1 year equiptment warrantee, 30 days buyers remorse period have became standard so have overage charges, but there still a lot of diffrentace between what each company offers its not jepordise the free market.
@ gas complainer lobby your congreessman to lift the federal ban on domestict drilling and demand alterive nuclear solar and wind an nature gas and demand flex feul vehiclas and last but not least expasion of the mass transit systme ala privatly run passenger rail non of this amtrack crap
To Stonyman,
Umm no!! Messaging is not using the same data as for web browsing.
SMS “short messaging services” is digetly transmited but its not using anytype of data sevice to transmit the message. It’s related more to numeric paging or even caller I’d then it is to internet service.
Now MMS “multimedia messaging services” does use data but in its simplest form and is still not even close to being the same type of data being used to browse the mobile web.
@Galvatron: You are correct for the long term. Offshore drilling coupled with increased refining capacity while lowering costs & overhead will take a minimum of 10 years to even begin showing results.
Increased nuclear: At least 15 years and will cost the Federal Government around $5.0 Billion
Natural Gas: Same boat as oil. Even if we increase harvesting of natural gas we don’t have an adequate natural gas power production infrastructure. That takes building more power generators – Better off taking that money and building Nuclear or Wind.
Wind: Our best bet right now. It produces a lot of power fairly cheap and can be built and connected to our national power infrastructure very rapidly (1 – 2 years per site).
Solar: Expensive, and not very efficient for the cost. In 5 – 10 years it will be good for home use to help offset the power consumed from the national power grid which can allow us to ramp down the use of oil and coal.
To help lower gas prices right now, we should invade Iran and make it the 51st state. We can pave it from border to border and build nothing but Walmarts and Oil Refineries and build pipelines directly from Iran to NJ. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be tarred and feathered then drawn, quartered and disemboweled and then burned with thermite.
I don’t understand why everyone is complaining about a US government official actually taking initiative for once. You make it sound like there’s no problem with charging $0.20 per text or $20 for unlimited – the cost to carriers is so small – I remember reading somewhere that if you were to download a standard song at test message rates you’d end up paying $2,000 for 4MB of data. I hope this senator gets somewhere with this.
Whit,
I’m an upper level executive for a hospital group in Columbus Ohio. I find it hard to believe that you own 20 hospitals. If that is true you need to stay off this site and figure out how to deal with the growing level of self pay patients. That is why everyone elses health insurance goes up every year. Quit worring about text messages and this site and start helping to get healthcare back under control. You might want to google what all we’ve done here to make ER’s a better and not have people use them for their Dr’s office.
@Galvatron
Before BigOil goes and stakes further claims, they should exhaust their already existing and congressionally-authorized (but untouched) access to _33 MILLION SQUARE MILES_ of available off-shore drilling sites.
Just a thought for the sober among us.
The oil companies have 33 million miles of authorized drilling space? I know the chances of finding a good spot to get oil is slim, but 33 Million? There has to be SOMETHING in that much space. Unless its not enough to make it financally feasible.
^ How would anyone know since they’ve never been fully explored? That’s the point of BigOil’s current insanity and politics-as-usual trying (again) to pull a fast one with you and me footing the bill.
A relatively new find of massive, grand proportions in the Gulf of Mexico is, by itself, enough to considerably lower dependence on foreign crude. At least its production could bridge the time-gap until alternative, clean energy can take dominance over oil and coal.
Price leadership is an observation made of oligopic business behavior in which one company, usually the dominant competitor among several, leads the way in determining prices, the others soon following. -wikipedia
Did you ever wonder why you can buy any item at best buy, circuit city, staples, etc and it’s ALWAYS the same price? They will all match each other if one tries to outprice another. So in the end they sort of hover at a set price and nobody dips below it. Cell carriers could attempt to price each other out of competition but what would be the point? There are so few competitors why not set a price and stick w/it. Better each carrier makes a little than nobody making anything.
$.20 is the new $.02
I know one provider offers 200 text messages for $5 then skips to 1500 for $15. What about a plan for 400,600,1000 txts or something. They know people who use text messaging send and received more that 200 messages, but probably don’t use anywhere near 1500 in one month. At least most adults don’t.
This guy is absurd. He is way out of line demanding the reason why text prices have increased, maybe the cost of doing business? Why doesn’t the Senator send letters to Airlines demanding the reason why we must pay for a peanut, a water, to check luggage when airfare has also risen? Cell phones are a luxury, not a necessity, this guy is somewhat retarded to even request such a reason. What a waste of government representation, we are in a war, a recession, economy is at its worst and he is worried about a cell phone cost that we as taxpayers probably foot the bill for anyway. OUST THIS GUY FROM OFFICE.
Long Term Abused Wireless Customer
I go back to the days when Nextel was charging me $280 a month for 2500 minutes. Then it was Sprint and it was not much better. Last before my personal cellular usage crash it was AT&T, with whom my wife and I shared 2100 minutes and Unlimited Internet for $139 but for some reason our bill was always near $200 a month, with taxes and other fees.
I began my At&T service the day of the launch of the first i Phone At&T had a policy of not insuring any PDA phone of any type, so when one was stolen, twice, I had to pay $550 to replace my Blackberry Curve.
Over the course of my 22 month relationship we have averaged over $225 a month in fees. I finally collapsed under the strain of it all and we now have two Blackberry curves, locked to the AT&T network, and we owe them around $600. My annual costs were nearly $3000 a year for two phones.
I would go over my minutes and be charge unbelievably for this. I NEVER could understand why my carrier could not simply inform me when I was about to go over. I’m a geek. The programming is pretty easy. I could never understand, after my phone was stolen, why is was that that person could simply open an AT&T account and keep on trucking without penalty. I would get periodic email notifications of its being in use. The ein number was obviously identical. I again lost hundreds and the major carrier won thousands more.
My story is one of horrible victimization by the major carriers, made even more glaringly true by the offerings of Boost Mobile. I thank the deities for them.
And frankly, may the wind be at their back, for illustrating how it is excellent business to stand as one of the first truly customer-centered operators in this heretofore horribly predatory industry.
Long Live Boost. I want a franchise immediately!
by Robert E. Lee (Oak Park, Illinois) (not verified) on 2/21/09 at 3:10 am | reply
Yes, they have other issues to work on in the senate. But, come on, .20-.25 per message when it costs them like .00017 to send them? The messaging part of the network is always running and connected and basically costs nothing for them to put that message through. Texting should be free on any network if your paying more than $35 per line for voice coverage. And additionally, if you are paying for any kind of data plan (internet), texting should be included!!