|
|
|
 Technology News | March 2008 
Get Around the Rising Cost of Text Messages
 Teresa McUsic - OMG:(
go to original
Text messaging is getting more expensive.
This month AT&T and Verizon join Sprint in increasing their per-message rate 5 cents to 20 cents for each incoming and outgoing message.
For those paying the phone bill each month, whether it's young adults or parents of teenage kids with fast fingers, now may be the time to re-evaluate your cellphone plan.
The per-message price increase has jumped so high because carriers are trying to push customers into bundles, which offer much lower costs per message, said Jeff Kagan, a telecom analyst in Marietta, Ga.
"The carriers want to drive bundles into having a number of services and a flat-rate plan," he said.
While offering tantalizingly lower costs -- message plans bring the per-message cost down to a penny or two -- buying a bundle adds one more layer to a cell phone plan, giving less room for the customer to squirm out of a deal and switch providers if they become unhappy with the service, consumer advocates say.
But if you do the math, anyone who sends more than 25 text messages a month is much better off in a bundle.
Starting cheap
All four major carriers, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, offer text message bundles of various sizes that can be added on to phone plans.
The cheapest add-on plans cost around $5 and vary in the number of messages allowed. AT&T offers just 200 messages at that price, while Sprint offered 300 and T-Mobile 400 messages. Verizon's cheapest ala carte plan is 500 messages for $10.
These bundles brings the per-message cost down to a penny or two. But be careful if you go over your allotted monthly limit: costs then go back up to 20 cents per message (except for T-Mobile, which has a 15-cent-per-message rate.)
The telecommunication companies also offer other plans with more text messages for slightly higher costs, generally $10 or $15 a month for between 1,000 and 1,500 text messages.
Dramatic increases
For those of you who have joined the text messaging revolution -- and given that there were 240 billion text messages sent last year, I'd say that's a lot of you -- 1,000 messages a month may not be enough.
"We've found most teenagers use over 3,000 text messages a month, while most adults have under 1,000 text messages because they use e-mail," said Sheryl Sellaway, spokesperson for Verizon. "It's become a lifestyle. There are people who primarily text message as their form of communication."
Text messaging is indeed gaining huge momentum as a consumer habit. Nearly 45 billion text messages were exchanged during the last quarter on Verizon phones, Sellaway said, more than doubling the same period a year ago.
Text messaging has exploded in the past few years, said Bob Roche, vice president of research for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. In June 2000, when CTIA began surveying telecommunication companies about text messaging, just 12 million messages were counted, he said.
"In 2000 you didn't have interoperability," he said. "You could only send messages within the same network."
The carriers worked out that problem in 2001 and there has been a dramatic increase in text messaging ever since, Roche said.
Unlimited outlook
Marketers of everything from horoscopes and jokes to television shows like American Idol have helped fuel the text message fire, Roche added.
If you find you or your children have an unquenchable thirst for text messaging, you may want to look at an unlimited plan.
"One solution does not fit all," Sellaway said.
Consumer advocates suggest sitting down with recent bills to figure usage in the three main categories of cellphone minutes, text messaging and online minutes, then figure an average and start comparing plans. Several Web sites like WirelessAdvisor.com and MyRatePlan.com can help you evaluate the plans.
One word of enormous caution from Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org and its accompanying Mouse Print blog: Be aware that premium messages will cost you even with bundles or unlimited messaging.
"The fine print of premium text messages like doing "Deal or No Deal" says you will be charged 99 cents or $1 for every text message you send," he said.
Also, subscriptions for text messages of daily horoscopes and Joke of the Day still cost money, regardless of their cellphone plan, he said.
Canning the spam
Another new problem is spam -- unsolicited text messages that can come from banks, television shows, political campaigns or any advertiser that has your cellphone number.
U.S. cellphone customers will receive around 1.5 billion spam text messages this year, up from 800 million in 2006, according to Ferris Research, a market research firm in San Francisco.
Along with this new spam is a new form of fraud through text messaging called "smishing," a variation of e-mail phishing, where a text message look like it's from a legitimate company, but is actually from identity thieves looking for personal financial information to steal.
Verify who they're from, and don't reply.
Tmcusic(at)savvyconsumer.net |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us