AT&T's Extortion on text messages

Most of us on here probably have an unlimited texting plan with AT&T. But what if you don't? What if you have a limited, or pay-per-text plan? Prices can get expensive quickly, but what are you actually paying for?

A text message uses up to 160 7-bit characters (why is it 7-bit? so they save $$$). That's 140 bytes. 140 bytes is small compared to what is a megabyte (1,048,576 bytes, or around 7489.8 messages). Yes, your text message is actually very small. Now, if you are on the unlimited/month plan ($20/line, or $30 for family plan), it it is still ridiculously high charges compared to modern ISP's. For instance, if my family texts 15000 texts per month, that works its way to be $15 per megabyte. If I text (on a singular unlimited texting plan) 7500 text messages a month, I am paying almost $20/megabyte. That would be an outrage even on a dial-up ISP. Even Media Net is only $2/mb on a pay-per-use data plan. On the 1500/month plan ($15/month), you use about 0.2mb of data through texting, assuming you use all 160 characters of each text and the maximum of 1500 texts a month, which makes it almost $75 per megabyte of data equivalent. On the 200/month plan ($5), if you max out, you are looking at around $.75 per megabyte. Back to the 1500 plan; if you go over, you are spending $.05 per text, or around $187/mb of data. On the international plan (100 texts that can be sent to any of over 140 countries for $10/month), and if you have an overage on the 200 plan, you are paying $.10/text, or $750/mb. If you go over on the international plan, use a pay-per-text, you are spending $.20 per text, or $1500/mb. International text messages cost $.25 with pay-per-use, or around $1875/mb. IT GETS WORSE! International roaming charges are $.50 per text message, which comes out to $3745/mb. Well, that's just if you send full texts! What if someone sent you a simple "K" in reply, which makes you ticked off becuase you are are roaming internationally? Well, that text made you lose only $.50, but what was the value of that text? Well, let's say you got a megabyte's worth of "K" texts while roaming internationally. It's unfeasible to get this amount, but I am simply showing a prime example of AT&T's extortion to trivial amounts of network traffic. That's a whopping $600,000/megabyte. Now, imagine that AT&T has millions (about 85 mil.) of customers, some (probably more than a handful...) goes overseas for business often. They don't think $.50 text charges are too bad on their personal phone on which they do not use often while overseas, because they probably have a international phone with another provider. But for every "K" text they receive, AT&T is making a $600,000 per megabyte profit.

What do you think of your phone company now?

But is this any different with Verizon, T-mobile, or Sprint?

So when you go to a restaurant and sit inside you get free refills, but what about those of us who don't and carry-out or go through the drive-thru?

A box of syrup makes 384 sodas (why 384? so they save $$$) that's about an ounce a soda, an ounce is pretty small when compared to a box of syrup (3 gallons, or around 3,072 drams). Yes your soda is very light on syrup. Now even if you dine-in (1.29 to 1.79/soda) it is still ridiculously high charges compared to modern gas stations.  For instance, if my family gets 4 sodas to take home at $1.29 a soda, that works its way to be $165.12 per box of syrup. If I drink (on a fast food soda drinking binge) 7500 sodas a month, I am certainly going to die....


Yeah that's the way of business Toast, it's nothing new or hidden.  I guess it's just the way the way capitalism works.

oh, the bar business, something i know a little something about.

if you have an in house stereo, you are paying at least $2000 a year for the ability to play music. that covers one licensing company. you most likely need to get all three companies. you most likely have seating for more than 15 people, so that cost goes up. a jukebox costs more for this license. a disc jockey, a band, karoke night. these all cost more in licensing fees. and you need a separate one for each. if your bar is big enough that you have separate entertainment in each room, each room needs its own licenses. video is a whole different set of licenses.
ever notice the movies you buy at the store say that it is not meant for public performance? the license for video doesn't allow you to pop a disc in the machine. you need a special disc or written permission.
and none of this even begins to cover the cost of the jukebox or music you put in it or the dj or band.
that's just getting permission to play music from the publishing companies. it doesn't even get into any state or local laws that might require more licenses.

an example of local costs...
there's a small city/large town near me and goat. each year you pay fifty dollars per machine (video game, pool table, condom dispenser, etc) and you pay half of everything that comes into those machines. not half of the profit. half of everything.
you also pay for the ability to charge an entrance fee (cover charge, ticket price, etc). you also pay half of every dollar that comes in.
regardless of your size or menu selections, if you are open after 8pm, you pay a fifty thousand dollar annual fee to help pay for the extra police and street cleanup required by the influx of people to the night life.

No. I like that George Thorogood song I Drink Alone. It's totally worth it to watch other people drink in public then act like fools. lol

The replies given to Toast's comments do not justify the cost of text messages. Text messaging and surfing the web on your phone use the exact same technology. It makes absolutely no sense that for $15/month you can download gigabytes of data but it costs you $20/month for unlimited texts which maybe only uses a few megabytes. You are spending $5 more a month to use less resources. It's illogical despite anyone trying to reason otherwise.

SMS just means Short Messaging Service. It was a standard integrated into the GSM to send messages over "technology" that already existed. You know telephony. TCP/IP is a protocol. SMS can travel through many gateways and protocols now. The Eternity uses HTTP to transmit text messages with the built-in IM app. It's all just 1s and 0s. The conventional way of sending SMS is becoming obsolete because of technology such as 3G.

@Toast

The 7 bit character encoding allows for longer messages, 160 characters, to be sent. The SMS standard only allows for a certain number of bytes to be sent because of the technology it used at the time. If they used 8 bit encoding the message length would be shorter. The fact that SMS can only send up to 160 characters now has nothing to do with the technology it is restricted to. A standard is a standard and the word 'short' means short. If you have something really important to say, call the person or send them an email.

Text messaging should be really cheap now.

it might look like one text but it counts as multiple.
think of buying beer (to keep with the bar theme). you can a bottle at the bar. you can buy a six pack at the grocery store. you can buy a case at the beer store.
they all contain different amounts and get charged different comments but they get received as one package.

That's what I'm talking about. Usually from other people, when I receive a TM , if its long i get it in multiple messages and when I send its the same way. But I have received text messages from a couple of friends that come as one long message. That has happened several times from the same people. I was wondering if it was an Iphone thing that allows them to send long text. Strange