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Verizon To Charge Content Providers $.03 Per SMS
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Oct 10, 2008 03:12 PM
from the but-there's-no-penny-slot dept.
from the but-there's-no-penny-slot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Verizon is going to start double-dipping by charging both consumers AND content providers for SMS text messages. Verizon has informed content partners that it will levy a $.03 charge for messages sent to customers, effective November 1. From RCRWireless: 'Countless companies could be affected by the new fee, from players in the booming SMS-search space (4INFO, Google Inc. and ChaCha) to media companies (CNN, ESPN and local outlets) to mobile-couponing startups (Cellfire) to banks and other institutions that use mobile as an extension of customer services.'"
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Submission: Verizon to charge content providers $.03 per SMS by Anonymous Coward
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email? (Score:5, Funny)
Did they send an email informing everyone of this?
Re:email? (Score:5, Funny)
If they did, I'm charging them to read it.
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Re:email? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:email? (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be glad to take your lawsuits, guys! Once we get the new Litigation Surcharge out of the way.
That'll be 99 cents per dollar that you're seeking in damages, plz.
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Re:email? (Score:4, Funny)
That'll be $1.10 per dollar that you're seeking in damages, plz.
Fixed it for you...
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think you mean .01 cents.
Re:email? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:email? (Score:5, Funny)
they're the same thing, sir.
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Re:email? (Score:4, Funny)
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I canceled (Score:5, Informative)
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They have it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They have it all wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be under the misapprehension that Verizon has some sort of policy regarding "fairness".
They also charge you for incoming calls. Even if they're wrong numbers.
Also I hear that 0.02 = 0.0002.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
...Assuming that you already know you don't want the call.
I usually don't find that out until after I pick up.
Re:They have it all wrong (Score:4, Informative)
...Which I'll have to spend airtime listening to.
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Re:They have it all wrong (Score:5, Informative)
That's a bald faced lie. I've spent countless hours arguing with sprint to even remove the cost of ONE spam text message, let alone wrong numbers. Fuck sprint. I jumped ship the day my contract expired. Good fucking riddance to that garbage company. May they evaporate as the stock market does!!!
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Re:They have it all wrong (Score:4, Funny)
>May they evaporate as the stock market does!!!
I have a new curse to add to my repetoire. Many thanks.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I quit because of Sprint's customer service, too. Shame, because I rather liked that weird Sanyo phone that I had.
For anyone that cares, the customer service rep, and then his manager tried to tell me that it was impossible for me to check minutes on my two phones after I'd been doing it for over a year. Weird, weird, experience.
Re:They have it all wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
While we're pony-wishing, I want to be able to choose which companies are charged how much to send me a text message.
Google-411: $0.00
Verizon: $1.50
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
For unsolicited messages, I agree. But what if you're trying to take advantage of a "free" SMS service (like Google)? You're soliciting that SMS response. Why should the content provider pay to respond? They may not be making any money off of that. Making them pay means many of them will simply go away, which I think would be a shame.
But for all of those "sign up to receive SMS spam from us" services, I agree that there ought to be a way to shift some of those costs onto them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How about this plan: Receiver specifies a white list. SMS from a white-listed sender charges the receiver otherwise it charges the sender. Also provide a way for the sender to check if a receiver has them white listed.
With this plan spammers gets charged, but you can pay for any opt-in services you want by white-listing them.
(Yes, I realize how close this is to many e-mail spam prevention proposals. However, I think that since the SMS infrastructure is already doing accounting, this sort of thing mi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is, but it will require a drastic change in the way the FCC does business.
I'd also like them to require telecoms to post the actual cost I'm going to be charged for a cellular contract instead of the bogus "39.95 per month" that they're currently allowed to advertise.
Re:They have it all wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Bloodsuckers, all of them.
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Email-to-SMS Gateways? (Score:3, Interesting)
Two Verizon stories in a row, neat.
Does anything prevent content providers from using the email-to-SMS gateways to send messages for free? I know some companies who do this...
It requires the customer to tell you their carrier of course, and you need to have an up-to-date list of email-to-SMS gateway addresses for each carrier, but hey, it's free.
i used to sms a lot (Score:5, Interesting)
but now everyone i know pretty much can email with their phones. and if not, there's an sms-email gateway, where you type their [phone number]@vzw.net or something like that. of course they have to pay for that, but if they reply, it comes in as a regular email, so you don't have to pay anything
such that i'm thinking of shunning sms use completely
sms is a wonderfully useful little signalling protocol... if it weren't being milked to death. so it will be discarded from general use, killed off by the phone company
Obligatory Verizon Math Post (Score:3, Funny)
So, by Verizon Math, $.03 is equal to $3 dollars, right?
Post Office Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not see how verizon could bill an arbitrary commercial interest to send a message to a customer on it's network. Even if they did identify the interest, there would be no contract established, so even though they could bill, it is unclear if th
FINALLY! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just crazy... (Score:5, Informative)
I never understood the "pay to receive" idea in the first place.
Anyway, in Australia (at least with one of the companies), you have two types of message. The ones that someone sends to you, and they pay for it. Then there are "premium" services (such as weather, news, games whatever), which you pay to request.
Charging to send AND receive? Greedy bastards should be lined up against the wall and shot.
Viva le revolution!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Simple, it goes like this.
In most of the world, cell phones are placed in a different area code (or whatever the equivalent of an area code is in a particular country), and if you want to dial a cell phone from a landline, the wireless carrier bills a settlement fee back to the landline carrier, and that fee is included in the price of a call to that area code.
In the United States and some other places, they didn't bother to do that. Instead
cancel your verizon subscription today (Score:5, Interesting)
so now verizon is charging other people money to *call you*. aren't you alrady paying verizon to have a phone number just so people can call you and send you messages.
you would have to be a real sucker to let verizon charge your friends and associates money to communicate with you, on top of what they are already paying *their* phone company to send the message in the first place.
Re:cancel your verizon subscription today (Score:4, Funny)
so now verizon is charging other people money to *call you*. aren't you alrady paying verizon to have a phone number just so people can call you and send you messages.
I don't how this differs from the way the real world works.
Verizon is a Las Vegas hotel room. Blackjack may be included, but the hookers and gratuities to both the bellhop and the hookers aren't.
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With email on your phone so common (Score:3, Insightful)
With email on your phone so common, why would you even want SMS and all it's limitations and cost?
Another example of US telcos acting dumb on SMS (Score:4, Insightful)
Timing is suspect (Score:3, Interesting)
I know I need to loosen my tinfoil hat, but the article specifically mentions the Obama campaign's reliance on SMS as an organizational tool. I think it's safe to say that Verizon and its little friends are big fans of the current surveillance-friendly administration, seeing as how the W administration just gave the telcos the world's largest "Get Out Of Jail Free" card with their little "retroactive immunity" bill.
Verizon couldn't have waited until December? Or November 15? Or November 5? No, they flip the switch just in time to make it more difficult for tech-savvy candidates (largely Democratic, hmmm) to send "don't 4get 2 vote!" reminders to their followers. Obama won't have any problems -- he could likely afford the "Free-2-End-User" service -- but smaller campaigns might have to drop their SMS reminder plans completely.
Of course, I'm suspicious of the way gas prices suddenly drop in October of years divisible by 4, too. :)
Re:Timing is suspect (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's safe to say that Verizon and its little friends are big fans of the current surveillance-friendly administration, seeing as how the W administration just gave the telcos the world's largest "Get Out Of Jail Free" card with their little "retroactive immunity" bill.
*sigh* Obama voted for it. (I'm voting for him anyway.)
Of course, I'm suspicious of the way gas prices suddenly drop in October of years divisible by 4, too. :)
They drop every October. Every September, too. People drive more in the summer.
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Re:Timing is suspect (Score:4, Funny)
Hey Pal! Stop posting facts to counteract Slashdot's Messiah Worship / conspiracy theory groove thing!
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*shrug* vote with your feet (Score:5, Interesting)
As a consumer, there are a number of carriers available. If you don't like Verizon's policies, just switch to one of the other US providers like AT&T/Sprint/T-Mobile. But this fee seems designed to soak service providers to Verizon's customers. They are much more likely to bend over and do some yodeling rather than forego the ability to sell things (or display ads/information) to Verizon customers.
Just another in the long series of customer unfriendly business decisions made by Verizon's management.
Cheers,
Re:*shrug* vote with your feet (Score:4, Informative)
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SMS over data connection? (Score:3, Interesting)
Article is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
This does not affect mobile-to-mobile SMS, consumers will not see any charges (unless the content provider chooses to recover costs from consumers). My understanding is that this fee will be 3 cents for every premium or standard-rated SMS sent from a shortcode to a Verizon subscriber, unless the message is from a non-profit/charity or is "Free to End-User" (whatever that means, I don't know the difference between an F2EU SMS and a standard-rated SMS).
My biggest concern is that we're not going to be able to stop this, and once Verizon adopts this policy every other carrier will as well. This has the potential to seriously affect the mobile content industry.
Who started this War? (Score:3, Informative)
This is another chapter in the war between SMS and IM. Which will be won by the latter, I guess.
Anyway, Verizon is probably reacting to services like this [ghacks.net] which makes sending SMS from an IM client free. Install an IM client on your phone and you have free SMS.
In the long run, my guess is, we will be all using IM clients to text each other in cell phones. They will consume (a small amount of) bandwidth from our 3G data plans. They will allow us to communicate not only with other cellulars, but with computers, PDAs, and other network devices. And they allow us to text someone in the other side of the world just as easily as in the same city.
SMS may be living a brief moment of glory under the sun. Unless, of course, operators decide to charge it more competitively -- soon.
Re:Email to Text? (Score:5, Insightful)
You pay a service contract fee for a data line.
You pay an extra fee for using that data line to send SMS messages
You pay and extra fee to use that data line to send http, pop, smtp, https traffic
You pay an extra fee on top of that if you want to use that data line to connect a computer
All at fees that are going up exponentially while cost per bit goes down for the company, I would love to see those margins. This is what is going to happen to your internet service soon people.
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Re:Email to Text? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seconded. And there's no surcharge for using the GPS capabilities of your device, or for tethering it to your computer as a modem. Verizon nickel and dimes you with all of their "additional" services. The only thing they have as a benefit is better coverage, and that's rapidly waning. I'll deal with not having coverage as far into the mountains as Verizon does if it means I save $50/mo on the same services.
Re:Email to Text? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's not talking about emailing from your phone. He's talking about sending an email to your phone that gets delivered as a text message. Big difference. There's no data plan involved.
Verizon will send a text message to my phone if someone sends an email to <my number>@vtext.com and happily charge me for it, even if it's spam. There's no way for them to charge the sender.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
T-Mobile lets you change yourNumber@t-mobile.com to nickname@t-mobile. It stopped spam instantly when I did this because I only gave my nick to a few people. Very nice feature. Other providers may do this as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Greed (Score:4, Interesting)
A fair price would be the same as all other data transfers. It's all bits anyway. You should pay the same price for a given number of bits, no matter what protocol you're using.
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