Cell phone firms queried on rising texting rates

Most Commented

Unified Communication for your Biz

Improve your contact center performance. See how you can make a difference.

Watch Now

Reach the ICT Community

Engage and build your ICT audience with CIOL online advertising.

Know more

Cell phone firms queried on rising texting rates

Cost of sending or receiving a text message in the US had doubled since 2005

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Email This

Print This

Comments

RSS

WASHINGTON, USA: The chair of the U.S. Senate's antitrust panel sent a letter to four top cell phone companies on Tuesday asking them to explain what he said were a doubling in the price of text messages in three years.

Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the antitrust subcommittee and a Wisconsin Democrat, wrote to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, Sprint Nextel Corp and T-Mobile TMOG.UL to express concern about "what appear to be sharply rising rates your companies have charged to wireless phone customers for text messaging."

Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.

Kohl, noting the four companies served more than 90 per cent of U.S. cell phone users, said the cost of sending or receiving a text message had doubled since 2005 to 20 cents on all four carriers.

"What is particularly alarming about this industry-wide rate increase is that it does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," said Kohl.

"Also of concern is that it appears that each of companies has changed the price for text messaging at nearly the same time, with identical price increases," he wrote. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace."

Kohl asked the four companies to explain why the price of texting had risen, and how the price of texting compared with sending e-mails or making telephone calls.

©Reuters

Would you like to on this article?

Read Comments

gangadhar G. Barve said on 9/11/2008 4:56:30 AM:
We have TRAI to do this job but unfortunately the powers that be concentrate only on technical matters and leave revenue aspects to competition (or cartelling?)

to gangadhar G. Barve

Name
Email
Your reply

Rs.10,000 computer-phone by 2010-end

Polaris eyes emerging mkt post LaserSoft takeover

Windows 7: Should CIOs migrate?

China wooing Indian IT companies

Arrested NASA scientist worked on Chandrayaan-1

NComputing to expand business in India

Infosys, Oracle to launch business platform for HR

Accentia eyes more activity in HRCM space

BSNL to go direct to Zain if consortium talks fail

BSNL not to call new bids for GSM order

	Simplify Business Management. ERP solutions by IBM
	Carry your Dream, Convey your Value with ZTE
	Get EMC Efficient.Learn more

	Get expert views on Mobilin V2
	How to make your enterprise productive
	Unified Communication can impact business. Know how

	Making Web3.0 a Reality!
	CIOL Enterprise Next :What's NEXT in IT? :
	Decrease Total System Costs With Cyclone IV FPGAs

	Reach your desired Target Audience and realize high ROI
	Effective ways of Customer Acquisition through Demand Generation
	Reach 2,500 potential Enterprise Customers!