OT: Text Message Rant

Just saw on BBC site that 26 billion texts were sent in 2004! What gets me is how mobile phone companies can justify charging 12p per text when a single sms message must only take a fraction of the time a normal phone call, and hence seems massively over charging for the service. Really pees me off that kind of rip off.

Steve

Reply to
r.p.mcmurphy
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Because they can !

Bit for bit, text messages are possibly the most expensive method of transferring information known to mankind :-)

Reply to
Mike

The reason is the same one as for a dog licking its balls.

People aren't forced to buy.

Reply to
Andy Hall

That's a not true and you know it! Signal fires on hill tops are way more expensive.

Reply to
Grunff

Well done. I did think long and hard for one more expensive but couldn't find it. Even sending data to a satellite is cheaper.

Reply to
Mike

What's a "text"?

Reply to
Huge

people aren't forced to pay no, but texting has become a way of life especially amongst kids (and chatty girlfriends!) and all providers seem to charge the same...is there some price fixing going on? seems like it...there doesn't seem to be much competition between providers. realistically, text message should be costing a penny each.

Steve

Reply to
r.p.mcmurphy

In message , r.p.mcmurphy wrote

Who do you think is paying back the billions of GBP that the phone companies paid the Government in the last round of bidding?

Reply to
Alan

The service providers have to recoup their infrastructure investment in existing technology and are then having to invest in 3G infrastructure and recovery of license outlay.

They are charging what the market will bear, and clearly it will bear current price levels for SMS. Loyalty is another factor for them, but again if they thought that SMS pricing made a significant difference, they would compete on it.

I nearly bought a 3G card for the notebook. The price levels, although still high, were livable with as a business expense. Then I discovered that during international roaming, they charge over £5 a megabyte. I didn't proceed with it.

Reply to
Andy Hall

As an example of the discrepancy, the phone companies provide GPRS data=20 on mobiles at around =A31 per megabyte. An SMS message is 160 characters,= =20 which with the header info is say 200 bytes.

If they want to charge =A31 per megabyte, 200 bytes should be charged at=20

0.02p.

Or if they want to charge 10p for 200 bytes, a megabyte should be=20 charged at =A3524.29.

David

Reply to
David McNeish

SMS message.

According to popular teenage lore, you shouldn't have text on a first date......

Reply to
Andy Hall

Except that for a text message you are paying for a message, an entity, not a volume of data, so a comparison is not very meaningful based on data rate. The data for a voice phone call wouldn't correlate to either - they are charging for the perceived value of what you get, not the amount of data it takes to achieve it.

Reply to
Andy Hall

It's what others do to subsidise your voice calls.

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

Yes, I know. I was being silly.

Unlikely. They appear to do little else.

Reply to
Huge

True. I can't see the point in texting at all - mind you, I can hardly see the screen ... since it's only grandchildren who send them I assume that they don't need a reply so I don't bother. If it's important they ring. From their parents' land line.

Texting is one of the sillier things in life. I'm not going to get upset by something as silly as that.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

It has it's uses, e.g. it's quite inobtrusive to send a text asking if someone is free to talk ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

Andy Burns wrote in news:41f51226$0$45564$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net:

I used to text when travelling by train around London. I would write the message and send it - and when a my phone connected to a transmitter it went. Voice calls would have been impossible on some of the routes. They also avoid the need to disturb everyone else in the vicinity with one's voice.

Reply to
Rod Hewitt

I remember many years ago, Orange used to charge £2 a month to be able to send messages, for as many as you wanted to. These were the days when only Orange and Vodafone customers could send messages, and even then only to someone else on the same network.

Then it became popular, they saw how much money could be made from messaging and decided to drop the monthly rental charge for sending messages and charge per-message instead.

Reply to
Googolplex

But if you knew a foreign message centre number you could send messages for free!

M.

Reply to
Markus Splenius

That sounds interesting. Care to explain further?

Sheila

Reply to
S Viemeister

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