When you do the math on it, sending a text message requires such a tiny amount of bandwidth that, based on data transfer rates, they should round down to free. Clearly, that’s not the case, with every single carrier using text messaging as a fun excuse to gouge their customers with insane prices for such a popular feature. Well, people are getting a little sick of paying $0.20 to send 15 characters of text; a class action lawsuit has just been filed against all the major carriers for price gauging.
The suit, which targets AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Alltel, U.S. Cellular, Cellular South and Virgin Mobile (T Mobile was targeted in a similar suit last week), seeks “recovery for actual and compensatory damages sustained by plaintiffs and others similarly situated. At this time, plaintiffs are specifically seeking recovery against the defendants for unauthorised charges, wrongful collections and unjust enrichment.” Its peg is based on charges that people receive from unsolicited texts even if they don’t want to have a text message plan at all, but it could have ramifications that reach beyond that. Or not. Something tells me that the carriers won’t be giving up their beloved ripoff text plans without a serious fight. [RCR Wireless News via Engadget]
Adam
Thursday, May 22, 2008 at 2:26 AMAnd the same goes for Australia – why should we pay 25c/$1.50 (national/international respectively) for a sms, are they crazy? in Europe, and this was over 5 years ago, i remember my cousin was sending international sms’s for 1c each, and that was no special plan/rate/discount, just standard rates… come on telstra, stop being c*nts and start providing the services Australia so desperately needs, in the interests of it’s customers
sleepacatcher
Friday, June 6, 2008 at 5:36 PMWhat Adam said amplified a million times and piped into the ears of Telstra/Optus/Vodaphone/etc….
Telstra claims it is working to service the needs of the people of Australia by providing world-class quality telecommunications at affordable rates. So drop SMS text prices to a comparable level (per Kb of data) with other cell-phone voice/data communication (2 cents per text message or less), and stop ripping us off.
If you can get the dollar signs out of your starry eyes for a minute and start thinking about what you can do for the people of Australia, not what the people of Australia can do for you, maybe you can rise above the rest of the blood sucking leeches, corporate vultures and parasites in this world.