Hot on the heels of the news that SMS messages cost networks practically nothing to send comes a Telstra press release that they’re expecting Australians to send up to 76 million texts during the New Years celebration. Now, I’m no mathematician, but at roughly 30 25 cents per SMS message, that equates to a crapload of money. What’s more, they expect customers to send around 600,000 MMS messages as well, and we all know how expensive they can be. To cope with the extra demand on their network, Telstra has apparently boosted their network in certain key locations around key Australian cities for New Years Eve, so hopefully you’ll be able to both send your New Years messages and contribute to Sol’s retirement fund al in one go.
UPDATE: Jeez – you guys sure do get worked up. 25 cents or “roughly 30″ cents… either way, the result is exactly the same.
[Telstra]
James
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 11:54 AMWell instead of us whinging about it lets do something about it… to whom should we complain that Telstra are ripping us off? We could start with something useless and ineffective like the “don’t buy petrol today” style protests but for texts… Or maybe I useless Communications Minister can stop trying to read our emails and rein in Telstra.
James_also
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 4:26 PMWho the heck pays 30cents per message?
James
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 4:34 PMwow, I have just reacquainted myself with SMS pricing… Telstra IS a rip-off! I’m with Three, and SMS’s don’t actually cost anywhere near 30c. craziness.
Annika
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 6:35 PMTelstra boosted capacity of the network? Sounds like crap to me and I am sure to the Telstra Techs who have been on strike. Get your gumboots out before wading through more of Sol’s BS.
niknah
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 7:13 PM30c x 76mill x ??% of the aust. market share = a very small amount of telstra’s tens of billions of revenue.
I stopped paying for sms since I joined smspup…
http://www.smspup.com.au
Michael
Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 7:39 PM“at roughly 30 cents per SMS” – i don’t know of any network in Australia that charges 30c. 25c is the maximum. And also, most people are on caps and “free text” deals, so the actual profit from all the sms will be significantly less than your projections.
tallinex
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 7:56 AM$0.30 a Text message??? what research did u do for this article? SMS are a max of $0.25 on Telstra, most people wont be paying that either when u have text packs ect or if your like me and have a hiptop and pay $0.00 per sms so hell yeah i’m gonna sent a $#!T load of sms and Telstra is gonna make $0.00 more then any other month from me.
And as a side note, does any1 else find that RECAPTCHA anti spam thing almost impossible to read? i sure do.
Pete
Thursday, January 1, 2009 at 12:24 PMIt’s crazy to say that sending sms messages is cheap so we’re getting ripped off. What pays for the radio tower? what pays for the computers that store and forward the sms messsages?
Andrew
Friday, January 2, 2009 at 10:11 AMThe costs for using a mobile network are almost irrelevant when comparing to the charges that we all pay to use it, because 99% of the costs occur before the first usage. In this way, SMS charges are like tolls on a new road, or payments on a hire car. If charges followed costs, then the first person to send an SMS would be charged $1 billion, and everyone after that would be charged 2 cents. But, no one would want to send that first SMS…
Rocket
Tuesday, January 13, 2009 at 4:24 PMNational sms is cheaper than 30c but the writer could have been allowing for international sms as well, which is 50c per text (with Optus).