Mobile Carriers and the SMS Gold Mine

Randall Stross in The New York Times on the cost of text messaging:

Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carriers from 2005 to 2008, during a time when the industry consolidated from six major companies to four.

So, in September, Mr. Kohl sent a letter to Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, inviting them to answer some basic questions about their text messaging costs and pricing. All four of the major carriers decided during the last three years to increase the pay-per-use price for messages to 20 cents from 10 cents.

Smells like price-fixing to me.

★ Monday, 29 December 2008