New York (NY) - Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile has announced that it will raise text messaging rates from 15 to 20 cents each.  Consumers will be charged for both sent and received messages and the new price puts T-Mobile in line with other mobile phone service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.  Those companies have been charging 20 cents a message for at least a few months.

The new rates take effect on August 29, but customers have a couple ways to alleviate the pain. For those who can endure long hold times and cranky customer service employees, they can call up T-Mobile customer service and try to get reduced or free text messaging rates.  On many online phone forums, customers are reporting decent success rates in convincing company personnel to lower or eliminate the rates – this is especially true when the employees think the customer may leave for another provider.

T-Mobile is also offering a bulk message plan that could lower costs for customers.  Some may argue that steering people towards these plans was the company’s intention all along.  For $4.99 a month customers can send/receive up to 400 messages while $9.99 gets you 1000 messages.  Very prolific texters should probably opt for the $15.00 unlimited domestic messaging plan.

Obviously, T-Mobile and the other companies wouldn’t raise the rates if they didn’t believe the public would pay for it.  The phone companies have a monopoly on the medium and can practically charge anything they want.  Furthermore, when you sign up for phone service, you agree to only accept text messages through your phone provider – there’s no decent way to decouple the voice and data.  Competition in the data space would be great and would likely lower text messaging rates, but there's no way to do this at this time.

Just a few years ago, text messages used to cost 10 cents each and customers were only charged when they received them.  Now customers are charged for both sent and received messages, which is quite annoying because you can be easily be bombarded with messages from friends, businesses and even spammers.  There’s also no decent way of opting out of receiving text messages, so you are basically forced to accept and pay for messages of dubious quality and importance.

Some customers are quite angry and vocal about the new rates and we think they should be pissed off.  Phone companies make a tremendous profit on these tiny up to 160 character messages and more than a few websites have compared the bandwidth costs to the Hubble Telescope (read our article from May 2008), writing out the bits on paper and sending them through the post office and a regular T-1 line. 

Ridiculous...

Jul 03, 2008 08:49     

These prices are ridiculous when you consider the networks involved... Bare, raw ASCII text is not even within an order of magnitude of the bandwidth voice traffic requires, yet we are paying a premium for the ability to basically send a short email... The sheer stupidity in this lies in the fact that most phone users get unlimited calling minutes during evenings and weekends (or at least at certain times). I guess it begs the question: WTF?

Philstuf report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Just Call It A Fuel Surcharge

Jul 03, 2008 09:17     

It is no secret that the wireless telecommunications industry makes HUGE profits on text messaging, Photo sharing, GPS and the such. I am an avid Tech Geek. However, I draw the line on paying those high prices for these add-ons. If corporate foots the bill...well by all means I will use them. However, my personal pocket and mind can not justify those costs for what they return in my personal life. I have spent the past 4 months researching the I-Phone and Blackberry units with the notion of having a data plan. However, with the way costs have been rising for these data plans I am now learning to be content with "just" a cell phone. The nail in the coffin concerning the I-Phone was when AT&T lowered the price for the unit but, raised the data plan by $10.00. I've done the math and it definately works in their favor over a 2 year contract. I am learning to do with less...lol

GjP report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

TMobile lost some points

Jul 03, 2008 10:31     

They could raise text fees to $1 for all I care. I don't really use texts anyway. What I do have a problem with is phone companies charging for incoming texts. Why should I pay when there's a strong chance that I didn't want to receive it? When I was with Tmobile I got 2-3 spam texts every month. That was an extra 20-30 cents on my bill at the time. Now that might not sound like much, but what if I have an ex-girlfriend who hates me and decides to let me know this 100 times or more? Under the current circumstances it would cost her of course, but maybe in her eyes it might be a small price to pay. It could happen. In my view, if companies insist on charging for incoming texts then they should provide customers with an easy option to disable texting on their phone service. I know I would have gone that route.

accrajoe report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Bright Side

Jul 03, 2008 12:21     

TMO is changing their contract - this means that every TMO user has the option to terminate their contract with no penalty. It doesn't mean you have to cancel your service but, that phone you picked up yesterday? Did the contract specify the new price? No? Hey, freebie. Your call if you want to keep TMO or just cancel with no penalty, sell the phone and get a new one (with TMO or any carrier) or just term the contract and keep using the service as month-to-month.

ciscoopa report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

USA = 5th world?

Jul 03, 2008 17:37     

3rd world Brazil doesn't charge for incoming text messages. In fact, with some carriers, you can even SEND free messages to their clients via their homepage! But hey, that's only in the 3rd world. Maybe in Mehkjakistan you get PAID for sending messages! :)
nke report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

RIP off

Jul 03, 2008 23:52     

In Korea, they charge 1cent, but still customer and government think carier charge too much. 20 times.....
1cent in Korea report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Sprint hasn't ever charged me 20 cents

Jul 04, 2008 00:03     

I've never been charged 20 cents for a text message with sprint... gtfo!
Al report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

40 cents a message, wow I'm in the wrong business

Jul 21, 2008 16:14     

So if they charge for sending AND receiving a given message, they rake in 40 cents for that one message. Wow... who says gouging is dead.
MorituriMax report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Screw It

Aug 12, 2008 00:47     

For 40 cents I'll just talk for 4 minutes. I know with Virgin Mobile they only charge a "incoming" fee when you open the text but you can see the title for free...not sure how it works with t-mo. But then VM had to fuck themselves over when the made it so you have to buy a card every 30 days instead of every 90 days....in which case they are just as $$$ as ATT's prepaid and ATT has 100x better reception that VM.

Me report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0