• Lidiaxxx said on Apr 22, 2008....

  I have always wondered aboiut this...weird i was telling my friend the same excat thing..when i blogged about texting. Why do we get charged so much for texting? *grunts*
   
  if they started charging for emails . Ill kiss my internet life goodbye.

• pickersplock said on Apr 22, 2008....

  I think texting is dumb anyway, all of that typing, when you could just leave a message!  And you don't get charged for that!

• gran1de7 said on Apr 22, 2008....

  texting is cool here.
  
  texting is not expensive in the Philippines.
  
  calling someone is expensive (even if it is just leaving a message). I don't know. Maybe because Filipinos want to read messages instead of listening to voices... also, when you want to say something personal, texting won't make you feel embarassed. but if you use your voice, it might show.

• uniquely-ironic said on Apr 22, 2008....

  I don't get it either.  I have a plan with unlimited text and calls, so for me the cost of it is all the same.  I don't like texting though because I don't have a fancy phone and it takes a long time to write just a couple of lines.  It's more convenient to call and tell them what I want to say.

• Lysander said on Apr 22, 2008....

  *puts on corporate hat*
  
  Texting is actually a messaging feature that works on the voice side of the wireless network. So texting takes up the same space as a call would, so the charge exists to pay for airtime that you would normally use if you placed the call.
  
  Blackberry devices need a data plan for the e-mails to get to you, so in a way, you are paying for your e-mail, but you are getting internet as well. Just like at home, you are paying for internet service, and e-mail is part of that, but you are still paying.
  
  Some rate plans come with texting, but if you want to text a lot, then you best get a rate plan for texting to cover the use of the system. Texting to e-mail is a switch of technology as well. The servers have to change the voice data to pure data when you send a text to e-mail.
  
  
  

• crybabylu said on Apr 22, 2008....

  good question.  I asked my provider because I was reall ps...d when I found out I was being charged, and they said that the volume of text calls are so overwhelming they felt they had to start charging for them.

• donq said on Apr 22, 2008....

  Email is free?
  
  
  If you mean from a phone, then you have to have a data plan (at least with my carrier) that's a lot more expensive than unlimited texting.
  
  
  If you mean from a computer, then someone is paying for the internet service, even if it is not you.

• Expendable said on Apr 22, 2008....

  Check out the The True Price of SMS Messages - text messaging looks like pure profit.

• TinSoldier said on Apr 22, 2008....

  Because the phone companies learned from the "mistakes" made by the free email providers, and vowed not to make the same mistake.
  
  That's my guess anyway.
  

• gingersoul said on Apr 22, 2008....

  Ed.....i dont get it either....and with a teen ager in da houz you can imagine how happy i would be of no charge uses...

  I like text messaging though....i like words so much that i am crazy enough to write the longest text messages evah....lol.....

  I like also the sound that annnounces an incoming  text.....it reminds me of the famous "You got mail" of the old AOL.....

• silverwhisper said on Apr 23, 2008....

  lidia: heh...i knew i wasn't the only person wondering this! :>
  
  pickers: as lysander notes, you do technically pay for e-mail--and i should have been similarly precise--it's bundled into our ISP fees.
  
  gran: i always knew that it's much more common to text in asia than the US but never understood it was b/c you get charged more for a call than a text!
  
  u-i: really? who's your carrier, u-i? as a rule, i do find it easier for anything other than a quick note to call, though. :>
  
  lys: ah good--i was hoping you might see this! but...every carrier gives you [minutes] gratis, so the charge for a text is a compensation for...no loss at all, it would seem to me. and why not adopt a new protocol that isn't voice? it chews up less bandwidth on the digital networks to use straight-up voice. if a carrier changed to SMTP/POP3 protocols, they'd reduce bandwidth demands/costs, plus be able to attract masses of customers on the basis of free, unlimited texting.
  
  dee: i gotta say, i find that customer service reps generally don't have enough technical knowledge to satisfy that kind of question for me.
  
  donq: you're right--as i said in my comment to pickersplock, above, technically we do pay for e-mail--but not on a per-message basis!
  
  ex: o, very interesting--thank you! :>
  
  TS: except look at some of the players in the mobile phone business--some of the biggest are ISPs too, have been for years!
  
  GS: heh...on the rare occasion that i text, i insist on spelling out each work properly. i'm sure that makes my messages harder to read for some... :D
  
  ed

• gingersoul said on Apr 23, 2008....

  Ed......LOL...me too!...and i drive my daughter crazy ....

  I am like "Uhmm, baby, thanks for the text but school is with two o"...lol...

• TinSoldier said on Apr 23, 2008....

  TS: except look at some of the players in the mobile phone business--some of the biggest are ISPs too, have been for years!
  
  
  Sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of Yahoo! and such. But I think that my point still stands.
  
  Plus the internet was built upon text transport with email and usenet and the like. And even this new protocol called "HTTP".
  

• Lysander said on Apr 23, 2008....

  *puts on corporate hat again*
  
  It is true that they give you minutes, but it isn't really free. For example, a basic nation plan of 39.99 comes with 450 anytime minutes. So, you are paying to use 450 minutes of talk time on our network. That isn't free. Plus, if you run out of minutes, you are paying .45 a minute over. Now, you get 5000 Night and weekends minutes, and unlimited mobile to mobile calling as well, but they aren't free. You are paying for access.
  
  Texting is a different beast not easily equated to minutes at all. But it uses the voice bandwith. So, texting is treated as a separate thing, including MMS message which allow you to share pictures. The idea of keeping it on the voice side is to allow more people to use those services without having the equipment cost of a data device that would mainly use the data network to get this done.
  
  Texting packages are there to address some of this, as it helps limit the cost if you text most of the time.
  

• CreativeWoman said on Apr 23, 2008....

  I love texting.  It is the main way I keep in touch with my nephew these days.  I just pay for the unlimited text fee and forget about it.  It's worth it to me.
  
  To answer your question though, I am clueless as to the reasoning for the difference between them except for the thought that email isn't really free when you think about having to pay for an internet provider in order to have any kind of access to it.  That being said, I don't have any indepth knowledge of any of it.
  
  CW
  

• silverwhisper said on Apr 24, 2008....

  TS: well, if we're talking about what built the internet, far more than individual technologies, it was pr0n. c'mon, we all know that! :D
  
  lys: see, i don't understand the decision to keep texts on the voice side--that has to be considerably expensive, plus hugely limiting re: bandwidth, as evidenced by the 1+ hour mobile phone blackout on new year's eve/morning. it's in the carriers' best interests to convert texts over to the data side, isn't it?
  
  CW: that's where i started myself, not knowing much about it, but over the years i started to educate myself--plus i have a good friend who's a fanatic texter and is an IT geek. :>
  
  ed

• Lysander said on Apr 24, 2008....

  Actually, it is neither more expensive or limiting. We have more bandwidth on the voice side than people think. We have two frequencies domestically - 850 and 1900 - that we can use. Plus, the data uses the same tower bandwidth, so it doesn't matter which side it uses from a cell tower point of view. It matters on the server side that routes the calls. The structure for texting as part of voice already exists on the voice side, to switch to data is a fairly massive change, and a change that would need to happen on the global scale since GSM is a global technology. That isn't something anyone is going to want to do when it works just fine on the voice side. AT&T has about 4 servers just for text messages that happen via American Idol.

• silverwhisper said on Apr 24, 2008....

  lys: ah...OK, that makes sense. heh...i'll confess, that doesn't surprise me at all re: servers for american idol. :>
  
  ed

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