From CNN – America’s Biggest Ripoffs

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:31:15 +0000

In a story titled “America’s Biggest Ripoffs”, CNN features text message fees as the #1 ripoff at a staggering 6,500% markup over costs. FonLover will be launching a free text messaging application for Blackberry, Apple and Android by the end of this month. If interested, write to us at support at fonlover dot com

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1001/gallery.americas_biggest_ripoffs/

Text messages are short, quick and cheap to transmit. So why are they adding so much to your wireless bill?

The messages are such a tiny piece of data that they cost carriers only about one-third of a cent to deliver, according to computer scientist Srinivasan Keshav, who testified before U.S. senators on the issue last summer.

But on a pay-per-text plan, the 160-character messages typically cost 20 cents outgoing and 10 cents incoming. That’s a markup of as much as 6,500%. OMG!

“It’s pretty much pure profit,” Keshav says. “Carriers would argue they put that money toward investing in new technology.”

Even if customers sign up for an unlimited texting plan for, say, $10 a month, carriers are still cashing in considering that their overhead is basically $0. That’s a lot to pay for a few LOLs.

Mobile Musings

From CNN – America’s Biggest Ripoffs