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As two presidential candidates rail against the Washington "establishment," a member of that elite group has raised some issues about how wireless carriers make money. Specifically, Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Herb Kohl thinks there's a correlation between rising text messaging rates and decreased wireless competition and he wants the carriers to explain themselves.
Kohl, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights sent letters to top execs at Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile asking them to justify the "sharply rising rates" they charge to send and receive text messages.
Kohl, who apparently doesn't oversee gas prices and isn't concerned with cable rates, expressed particular angst that all four carriers seem to have adopted identical price increases in a short time frame, writing in the letter that this conduct "is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace." Ironically, Kohl's interest sprang up at the same time European Commission regulators threatened to impose a cap on roaming fees for text messages sent to Europeans traveling outside their home nations.
For more:
- see this article
Related:
Obama introduces text-messaging initiative. Article
More stories about Wireless Carriers Verizon Wireless Sprint T-Mobile Text Messages Price Competition Cable Rates
Comments
Posted by Cal Morton | September 10, 2008 - 12:42pm
Particularly galling when you consider CTIA just released these numbers...75 Billion text messages were sent just in June! It’s a good thing too since we’d been telling people there were at least 60 billion messages sent every month in the U.S. We had just got our US short code approved in 2006 when they announced 12 billion for the same period compared to 5 billion for June 2005. So, from 5 to 75 billion or a 1,400% increase in 3 years ….the fastest growing communication technology in history doesn’t look like going out of style any time soon.
Posted by Melissa Sampson | September 10, 2008 - 3:31pm
As if there weren't many more important things for senators to be worried about right now. Text messaging is not that expensive compared to...oh, I don't...gasoline maybe???
Congress so fails.
Posted by Anonymous | September 10, 2008 - 6:34pm
Text messaging is such a rip-off and the high per-message price is clearly designed to push consumers into purchasing plans where they buy more messages than they need.
Comparing text messaging with gasoline is ridiculous. Gas is made from a market-priced commodity; text messaging is based on data transmission which gets cheaper every year. Text messages cost basically nothing to deliver. Text messaging ought to be free - and would be if there was any serious competition in the space.
Phone companies suck.
Posted by Anonymous | September 10, 2008 - 10:18pm
"Kohl, who apparently doesn't oversee gas prices and isn't concerned with cable rates . . . " Is this supposed to be journalism or editorial comment? Leave the commentary to CTIA's "news" teams and at least try to be objective.
Posted by Anonymous | September 10, 2008 - 10:19pm
"Kohl, who apparently doesn't oversee gas prices and isn't concerned with cable rates . . . " Is this supposed to be journalism or editorial comment? Leave the commentary to CTIA's "news" teams and at least try to be objective.
Posted by Sue Marek | September 11, 2008 - 7:34am
FierceWireless' style is to be part journalist and part analyst. We serve our readers by not just reporting the facts but also adding some extra insight. --Sue
Posted by Joe | September 11, 2008 - 5:44pm
Herb Kohl on gas prices: kohl.senate.gov/pri_fam_gas.html
Herb Kohl on cable rates:
kohl.senate.gov/pri_cons_tv.html
"Part journalist, part analyst?" I think doing your homework is a requirement for each. Blindly siding with Big Telecom apparently does not, however.
Posted by Roger S Conrad | June 17, 2009 - 2:46pm
Kudos on pointing out the hypocrisy of politicians in both parties who are charged with overseeing the communications industry. At the risk of being accused of "blindly siding with Big Telecom," I ask what other country has more communications choices for less money than the US?
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