Verizon Wireless may charge companies for text
By Michael W. Jones
Just when you thought that most of the bad economic news for the week was over, Verizon Wireless has announced that it may increase the per-message fee it charges companies to send customer alerts via text message.
Verizon’s intent to increase the charge was leaked by OpenMarket, a service that sends such messages for other companies. The company sent a letter to its customers to announce that it will be passing on the new fees to its customers. The letter said, in part, “”Effective Nov. 1, 2008, Verizon will assess a transaction fee of $0.03 for every MT message processed on its network. Please note that these message fees will apply to standard rate and premium programs. Transaction fees will not apply to Free-2-End-User, Mobile Giving or Non-Profit organizational programs.”
The letter goes on to say, “Pursuant to your Commercial Services Agreement with OpenMarket (including former Simplewire Agreements) concerning Third-Party/Operator Fees, in the event message fees are assessed by Verizon for any of your programs, these fees will be passed on to your company at cost.”
Although a three-cent increase does not sound like much, millions of such messages are sent by companies like Orbitz, Cha-Cha, Google, and others. Such a cost increase could discourage companies from sending SMS messages, resulting in a loss of important information for consumers. Text message alerts have become an important service for companies and consumers alike, and have previous combined convenience with little or no cost.
Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson had the following to say in response to the leak: “We are currently assessing how to best address the changing messaging marketplace, and are communicating with messaging aggregators, our valued content partners, our technology business partners and, importantly, our friends in the nonprofit and public policy arenas. To that end, we recently notified text messaging aggregators–those for-profit companies that provide services to content providers to aggregate and bill for their text messaging programs–that we are exploring ways to offset significantly increased costs for delivering billions upon billions of text messages each month.”
Despite this disclaimer, the information-by-text-message marketplace is understandably upset by the possibility that SMS services could stop being provided at no charge or could disappear altogether. Many companies have built SMS updates into their business plans, and their customers have come to rely on the information provided via text message. Both these companies and their customers stand to be hurt by the contemplated Verizon price change.
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October 12th, 2008
It seems to me that Verizon is admitting to violating its users privacy by reading their text messages. What business is it of Verizon who sends its users text messages and what those messages say? If I’m working on a car or property deal and my Realtor or car salesman calls me about it, does Verizon have a right to listen to the conversation and charge the sales staff or company for calling me? It’s the same thing with a text message. If I opt in for political ads or news alerts or updates on products I am interested in, what gives Verizon the right to listen in on my text messages to determine who is contacting me and whether or not that contact included advertising?
October 12th, 2008
Wow Bruce, do you see black helicopters when you look out your window?
This isn’t some conspiracy nor is it Verizon reading your text messages (though I am sure they have a right to). This IS about finally a US carrier deciding those who generate billions of messages on their network ought to be paying more for that priviledge. Like the rest of the world eh? I say its about time.
Oh, and any company that built their business plan on the assumption that service like this would remain free or dirt cheap was foolish. SMS costs carriers FAR more to implement in their network then do things like email, but nobody has come up with a technology yet that is like sms in its universality yet is cheap and easy to do.