If you’re like me, chances are you have actually resorted to sending text messages to the Philippines instead of making a phone call. The main reason – almost everyone there have cell phones and to call from the U.S. to the Philippines is expensive because of the “added cell phone charge.”
But, text messaging is also getting expensive, to the point that it is rising at the same rate as gasoline prices. An interesting news item at Crave mentioned that sending text messages have DOUBLED within one year, the same rate gasoline prices had gone up!
I used to pay 10 cents per text message; now, I’m paying 20 cents. Adding insult to injury, I have to pay both ways – to send and to receive. For the Philippines, double that amount. Ouch!
And if you’re thinking you will just change carriers, don’t! All the cell phone carriers are charging the same prices for two reasons alone – it is NOT regulated and there is no law against charging prices to whatever the market will bear. Another reason, which is the saddest and actually the real insult to the consumer’s intelligence, it is because THEY CAN!
I’m not against technology. I’m all for it. But, when the big companies start to take advantage especially when technology is becoming cheaper each day, it yanks my chain. Problem is, the same that these phone companies that used to bleed the Baby Boomers with high long distance rates, the same phone companies in another guise (as in wireless) are charging an arm and a leg for text messaging!
I’m not going to explain the whole thing, the Crave article ‘The Rising Cost of Texting’, actually have a good explanation.
