Text Message Discounts

Sep 28

I want a discount for sending text messages. That’s right, I want my cell company to credit my account five cents each time I send a text message instead of making a call (perhaps up to $20 a month or something). Any chance of this happening? Yeah right. They also have a bridge to sell me…

But despite the snowball’s chance of this ever happening, I feel fully justified in wanting it. Why? While I don’t know the exact protocol of each cell company’s text message format, I can make an educated guess at the size of an SMS. If I send a 160 character message using 16-bit characters, I need to send 0.3 kilobytes. I’ll generously double that for overhead information to 0.6 kilobytes. Based on VOIP estimates I’ve read several places, a typical call is 50-80 kbps. But even if I’m way high on this number (and cell phone companies are using some super duper classified compression algorithm) and the real bandwidth is 5 kbps, that’s still 5 kilobytes per second! A 20 second call would be 100 kilobytes. Compare that to less than 1 kilobyte for a text message. My company can literally send hundreds (and probably thousands) of texts for the price/bandwidth of a single, short phone call.

In other words, I am doing a HUGE favor to my cell company by choosing to text rather than make a quick call. How does it reward me? By charging me $0.20 per text or $15 per month for “unlimited”. It should be giving me $15 OFF my bill!

For this very reason, I boycotted texting for a long time, but I finally added it last month. Too many of my contacts need me to be able to text. I’m sure the companies know they have me, and that’s life with an oligopoly that knows it can get away something. The executives are laughing all the way to the bank.

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Comments

Nathan Toone

September 28th, 2009 at 3:41 PM

It’s even worse than that… From http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2008/12/28/the-truth-about-text-messaging-youre-getting-ripped-off/:

“You see, SMS messages are elusively hidden within the so-called “control channel,” which is space already reserved for the operation of the wireless network. So long as messages are kept concise (say, 160 characters or less), they can be sent without any real implication on the channel.”
Tyler Seader

September 30th, 2009 at 10:21 PM

What gets me mad about text messaging, is that I have to pay for a message that has already been transmitted to my phone. There it sits on my phone and the second I click to view that message, I get charged… For what?! If the government catches on, I’m going to have to start paying for every piece of mail I want out of my mail box.
Nathan Bunn

October 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 AM

The only part of this text messaging ripoff that I do like is that it gives smaller start up companies that don’t do this stupid stuff a chance in the market. Because most of the main stream companies all do this, it creates a virtual monopoly. An environment like that is begging to be upended by a smaller company that is not stuck in its ways.
John Smith

October 7th, 2009 at 9:59 PM

Not to pick nits, and not that it should dissuade your frustration, but kbps is measured in bits not bytes. So, assuming the super compression theory (5 kbps of real bandwidth) you could only send one or two text messages for every second of voice. But text messages are still a ripoff!

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