Email is free. But SMS is not. Both are bits of data transmitted over a network. Both cost almost nothing to the networks. But then why is SMS so expensive? Greed of the carriers, that’s why. US has one of the highest SMS tariffs in the world. No wonder it is not as widely used as some other parts of the world.
SMS is a total rip off says Sam Diaz.
Everyone knows that movie popcorn is one of the biggest ripoffs, right? I mean, really, how much does it cost to pop enough popcorn to fill that $6 tub? It turns out that movie popcorn carries a 600 percent markup.
Ouch. And yet it’s not the biggest ripoff out there, according to a report by CNNMoney.com. The biggest ripoff, by far, with a 6,500 percent markup, is… the text message.
Text messages themselves, according to experts, are just tiny blips of data being transferred to and from mobile devices and don”t even cost the carriers a full penny to process. Computer scientist Srinivasan Keshav, who testified on the matter in Washington last summer, is quoted in the post as saying that it’s actually closer to about one-third of a cent to deliver.
I don’t like regulations and government interfrence. But this is one area of exception where I would like to see some govenment action. If the SMS costs come down we will see tremendous innovation in its use for personal and business communications. You see a lot of innovation in SMS in places like India. I would love to see that happen in the US too.