Despite research notes from industry analysts saying otherwise--and a rather excitable post over at the Consumerist--Cingular claims its SMS rate increase is not grounds for their subscribers to break their contracts. Cingular raised the price of individual text messages that are not part of a bundled deal from 10 cents to 15 cents per message. A closer reading of the basic Cingular contract shows that since the rate increase does not affect any subscription service (and the loophole only applies to price hikes on subscription services), there is no grounds for breaking the contract. While this may be good news for Cingular's churn rate, I wonder if the distinction could result in some subscriber resentment--especially since Sprint made an identical rate hike just two months ago and allowed its subscribers to break their contracts if the hike was too much.
For more on Cingular's SMS rate increase:
- see this article from Mobile Tracker