|
Archives for the category: European/ZA/USA SMS pricing issues
Displaying entries
of 82
<< Previous | Next >> September 13, 2009Cell-Phone Bills: Is Text-Messaging Too Expensive?Texting isn't just a hot medium; it's also a big eyesore on many cell-phone bills. Even so, carriers fear that their fat texting profits will soon disappear. TIME reports.
Read full article. Related: -- Text-message fees recommended for antitrust scrutiny -- Lawmakers Question Increased Text Messaging Costs emily | 10:03 AM | permalink
July 1, 2009Mobile roaming charges drop across EuropeMobile phone charges will fall for millions of holidaymakers across Europe from today, after new regulations come into force to drive down the cost of roaming. The Guardian reports.
emily | 8:22 AM | permalink
June 22, 2009Text-message fees recommended for antitrust scrutinyThe chairman of a Senate panel on antitrust issues last Tuesday called on the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department to scrutinize competitiveness in the cellphone industry, pointing to a 100% increase in some text messaging charges by four companies that control most of the market. The LA Times reports.
Read full article. Previously: - Lawmakers Question Increased Text Messaging Costs emily | 6:57 PM | permalink
June 18, 2009Lawmakers Question Increased Text Messaging CostsLawmakers on Capitol Hill are questioning cell phone carriers about the increasing costs of texting. Democratic Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl is among the group asking questions, reports ABCwisn.
The consumer mark-up on some text messages is an estimated 4,900 per cent, according to a leading Canadian computer scientist who testified before U.S. senators on Tuesday. The maximum cost of a single text message "very unlikely" exceeds 0.3 cents, reports Canada.com. emily | 8:15 AM | permalink
June 2, 2009Syrians Boycott Mobile Phones in ProtestSyrian subscribers are fed up with the high costs of running a mobile device in their country. The protest is aimed at knocking down prices to price-points comparable to other countries in the region. Facebook and Twitter were used to help spread the campaign message. [via IntoMobile] emily | 5:38 PM | permalink
May 14, 2009Vodafone UK to Offer Borderless Roaming this SummerVodafone UK has announced that it is abolishing roaming charges between June and August this year - allowing calls made and SMS/MMS's sent from 43 countries (and 2 UK territories) to be charged at the same rate as their home tariff. Nice. [via CellularNews] emily | 3:55 PM | permalink
May 8, 2009EU Moves to Cut Mobile Phone Termination RatesThe European Commission launched a new assault on what it considers to be rip-off costs in mobile telephony Thursday, this time setting its sights on mobile termination rates. IDG News reports.
emily | 1:41 PM | permalink
April 22, 2009EU assembly adopts new price curbs on phone callsUsing a mobile phone to send text messages or surf the Web by laptop will be up to 60 percent cheaper for travelers in the European Union under price curbs adopted by the European Parliament on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
emily | 5:53 PM | permalink
March 25, 2009European Travelers to Get Cheaper Text MessagesEuropean travelers will pay less to send text messages under a deal agreed to by EU negotiators. Mobiledia reports.
emily | 10:29 AM | permalink
March 11, 2009European Lawmakers Vote To Cap Roamed SMS Charges, Data Downloads; Differences RemainThe European Parliament's Industry Committee voted on Monday to reduce the charges for sending text messages and for downloading data while consumers are roaming outside of their home country, a move that could pave the way for the lower costs starting July 1. [via The Washington Post] emily | 9:12 AM | permalink
November 26, 2008Europe Nears Price Cap on Mobile Text MessagingEuropean Union telecommunications ministers are set to endorse on Thursday proposed price limits on cross-border text messaging and mobile Web surfing, according to a copy of the plan obtained by The International Herald Tribune. [via The New York Times] emily | 9:06 AM | permalink
October 3, 2008Lawyers suing wireless carriers over SMS ratesShortly after Sen. Herb Kohl asked wireless carriers to justify rising SMS prices, lawyers began filing antitrust suits, RCR Wireless News reports via The Dallas Morning News. "The wireless industry trade magazine uncovered five suits in just the first few days after Kohl began asking carriers why they've doubled the price of text messages over the past few years. Text messages, when paid for individually, generally cost about 20 cents apiece these days -- even though many analysts think they cost carriers well under a penny to deliver. High profit margins aren't illegal, of course, but when all the companies in an industry hike the price of a service that's only getting cheaper to provide, people start thinking about collusion and antitrust suits. RCR thinks the lawyers smell blood and expects them to pool their resources into a massive class action. ... Americans currently send about 75 billion text messages a month, so SMS is clearly a big revenue and profit generator for the wireless industry. Carriers generate about $28 billion a year in data revenue, which includes SMS. " emily | 8:47 AM | permalink
September 10, 2008Text-Messaging Rates Come Under ScrutinyThe top four wireless providers in the U.S. are being asked by a senior senator to account for their text-messaging prices, reports the WSJ. "Sen. Herb Kohl (D., Wis.), who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, sent letters Tuesday to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint-Nextel Corp., and T-Mobile USA, noting that text-messaging prices have increased 100% since 2005. "What is particularly alarming about this industrywide rate increase is that it does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," Sen. Kohl's letter said. Mr. Kohl's letter noted that each company appears to have changed text-messaging rates at nearly the same time, with identical prices. " emily | 7:36 AM | permalink
September 3, 2008EU to cut SMS Roaming Fees by more than 60%European Union regulators proposed cutting mobile phone text-messaging fees charged when customers travel abroad by more than 60 percent. Bloomberg reports. "The European Commission will propose that the retail charges for SMS should be capped at 11 euro cents ($0.16), down from an average price of 29 euro cents in the 27- member EU, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News. Wholesale charges will be capped at 4 cents, the document said. " emily | 5:19 PM | permalink
July 22, 2008Aussie watchdog sniffs at mobile data feesThe rise of fast web browsing on 3G mobiles such as the iPhone has prompted Australia's competition regulator to investigate whether carriers are misleading consumers into a trap of high excess data usage fees. [via stuff.co.nz] emily | 8:20 AM | permalink
July 15, 2008EU's Reding seeks to slash cost of text roaming"Rip off" mobile phone operators will be forced to slash by roughly two-thirds the cost of text messages for people travelling between European Union countries, the European Union bloc's executive arm said on Tuesday, reports Reuters. "The 2.5 billion text messages sent every year by roaming customers in the EU cost more than 10 times more than domestic short messages (SMS), EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement. "EU citizens should be free to text across borders without being ripped off," she said. emily | 9:40 PM | permalink
July 1, 2008Mobile firms hit roaming deadlineMobile phone firms have reached a deadline to cut the price customers are charged for sending text messages in member countries of the European Union, reports the BBC. emily | 6:51 PM | permalink
June 26, 2008EU plans new push to cut mobile chargesThe European Commission plans to use new administrative powers to push national regulators to lower the fees that mobile operators can charge each other to connect calls between their networks. Much of the savings would be passed on to consumers. [via IHT] emily | 11:17 AM | permalink
June 16, 2008EU suggesting mobile phone users should pay to receive callsEuropean Union telecoms chief Viviane Reding has angered consumers after suggesting mobile phone users should pay to receive calls as well as make them, writes the Daily Mail. "Despite previous moves to reduce high costs for mobile phone users, the Telecoms Commissioner has done an apparent u-turn by suggesting she would propose that Europeans pay to receive calls - a common practice in the United States, China and Singapore. Ms Reding is also seeking to reduce the cost of text messaging for Europeans while they are abroad from their home country." emily | 2:40 PM | permalink
June 12, 2008Warning over EU roaming chargesThe European Union's telecoms chief has threatened to introduce measures slashing the costs of cross-border text-messaging if operators do not lower prices voluntarily by July 1. The Press Association reports. "EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding insisted the costs of SMS and data roaming were too high and opaque and must come down because consumers are being ripped off. Costs people pay for making mobile phone calls outside their home countries have dropped by up to 60% since the European Commission capped fees last September. But the price cap does not cover mobile internet or some 200 billion text messages that are sent a year in western Europe." emily | 9:11 PM | permalink
May 12, 2008Costs of Text Messaging vs. Space Transmissions
"Nigel Bannister, a space scientist at the University of Leicester in Britain, has concluded that sending a text message costs at least four times as much as transmitting scientific data from the Hubble telescope." Dr Nigel Bannister’s calculations were used for the Channel 4 Dispatches program “The Mobile Phone Rip-Off”. He worked out the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble – and compared that with the 5p cost of sending a text. He said: “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that. emily | 9:44 PM | permalink
April 4, 2008EU regulator threatens to go public with cellphone companies' feesThe European telecommunications regulator plans to name and shame operators that do not cut prices for roaming text messaging and wholesale data transmission by July 1. The IHT reports. "I will look at all the tariffs available and put them on a Web site," the regulator, Viviane Reding, said Thursday in Paris. "That way, people will be able to see which ones have not lowered their prices." Reding, the EU telecommunications commissioner, said she would submit regulation that could come into effect as early as the end of this year to ensure operators heeded her demands." emily | 7:53 AM | permalink
February 11, 2008EU in new assault on 'rip-off' mobile phone chargesThe European Union set mobile phone companies a July deadline on Monday to cut their roaming charges for text messages and Internet use or face regulation. [via AFP] emily | 9:37 PM | permalink
January 17, 2008EU sounds new alarm about mobile phone billsMobile phone users in Europe are often billed 20 percent more than the actual time of their calls because they are charged by the minute - even if they talk only 20 seconds, the European Commission said Thursday. The AFP reports. emily | 8:03 PM | permalink
December 10, 2007Mobile operators to challenge lawThe UK's four leading mobile operators were given clearance yesterday to take a challenge over the EU roaming law to the European Court of Justice. 02, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile allege that Viviane Reding, European commissioner for telecoms, had no legal right to introduce the law, which forced the operators to cut the charges they impose on customers for calls outside their home countries. A London high court judge agreed to refer the issue to the European court of justice. [via the FT] emily | 8:48 AM | permalink
July 31, 2007New EU rules to slash mobile phone calls abroad come into forceNew rules aimed at slashing the price of mobile phone calls made abroad in the European Union come into effect this week, with EU regulators promising Monday to name and shame non-compliant companies. [via the AFP] " Mobile phone operators had until midnight Monday to offer the new so-called roaming rates and by September 1 must bring them into effect whether customers request them or not. An EU commission spokesman said that the mobile phone operators who did not offer the new rates would be named and shamed." emily | 9:54 AM | permalink
July 18, 2007EU regulators drop mobile phone probeThe European Commission said Wednesday it had dropped its antitrust investigation into mobile phone roaming prices charged by operators in Britain and Germany after new EU rules forcing telecom companies to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad. [From the Associated Press] emily | 2:00 PM | permalink
June 25, 2007EU To Monitor Cellphone Bills For Abuses In Roaming RulesThe European Commission said Monday that it will monitor the cost of mobile phone use over the next 18 months to ensure operators don't unfairly raise fees to compensate for the price ceiling on international roaming calls, set to come into force this summer. The commission also threatened to fix ceilings for the prices charged for using cross-border data networks unless operators slash their fees. The commission will "continue to monitor prices, in particular for SMS and data roaming, to make sure consumers do not suffer in other ways," said E.U. Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding, who has championed the price ceilings. "I hope that operators now understand the E.U.'s ability to act. My message to them: Move now and bring down SMS and data roaming charges down quickly, or we will be forced to also intervene there very shortly." Yay! emily | 9:10 PM | permalink
June 9, 200727 European Countries Approve Cell Phone Roaming CapThe European Union governments approved a cap on cell phone roaming fees this week, but the move isn't likely to have much if any impact on U.S. cell phone callers traveling in European this summer. TechWeb reports. "Approved Thursday, the new cap is scheduled to take effect in European countries in August. Rates will be capped at 66 cents a minute for outgoing calls and 33 cents a minute for incoming calls. The lid on roaming fees drops prices drastically and service providers have complained about the action. The cap is not expected to impact roaming prices for U.S. travelers. "Although this is great news for Europeans, the legislation does not protect foreign travelers with North American-based carriers," said a spokeswoman for Brightroam," emily | 8:00 AM | permalink
May 23, 2007EU parliament approves plans to slash roaming ratesThe European Parliament adopted on Wednesday measures slashing so-called roaming rates by as much as 70 percent, a decision likely to cut the cost of cross-border mobile phone calls in coming months. [via the AFP] Welcoming the vote, EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding said: "This means that already from this summer, mobile phone customers will start benefiting from substantially reduced roaming charges when travelling from one EU country to another. "Europe's internal market will finally become truly borderless, even for mobile phone bills,"she added. emily | 3:51 PM | permalink
Displaying entries
of 82
<< Previous | Next >> |
Search this blog
Other categories
Cell Phone Apps and Advertising (29)
Cell Phone Apps Random Stats (50) Cell Phone Apps Related Articles (236) Cell Phone Apps Reviews (382) Cell Phone Apps Weekly Roundup (14) ADVERTISEMENT / SPONSOR (2) Advertorials (12) Ask Experts / Mobile Searches (96) Bullying by SMS (45) Cell Phone Designs and Concepts (200) Cell Phone Etiquette (81) Cell Phone Fashion (647) Cell Phone Monuments (18) Cell Phone Recycling (34) Cell Phones used by Terrorists (43) Cell Phones while driving/flying/sailing (365) Citizens as Informants (16) Do you speak SMS? (39) Domain Names (21) Enhanced Keyboards for SMS (53) European/ZA/USA SMS pricing issues (82) Favorite Companies (5) Fun on Digg (6) Health Issues and SMS Alerts (458) Inmates and Cell Phones (70) Isolation from Cell Phones ideas (38) Localisation (197) M2M (15) Message from textually.org (202) Mobile apps (29) Mobile Cartoons/Comics (19) Mobile phone projects - Third World (181) Mobile RSS (3) Mobile Success Explained: Japan, Europe, USA, China (32) Multimedia Messaging (MMS) (76) New SMS Services (591) News, Buzz (3086) Paul Notzold's Me&My Mobile Class (5) Privacy Policy (1) PTT (Push-to-Talk) (55) Public Phone Booths (8) Random Stats (613) SMS and Banking (138) SMS and Business (122) SMS and Charities (94) SMS and Gaming (259) SMS and Government (31) SMS and Insurance (11) SMS and Litterature (74) SMS and Micro Payments (90) SMS and Politics (508) SMS and Porn (65) SMS and Religion (109) SMS and SARS (17) SMS and Students (273) SMS and Television (59) SMS and the Arts (267) SMS and The Movies (39) SMS and Wildlife (29) SMS as Evidence in Court (15) SMS Chat (6) SMS Dating (79) SMS for Deaf/Disabilities (93) SMS Marketing & Advertising (325) SMS Services offered by the Press (124) SMS Studies & Research (312) SMS used as evidence in court (17) SMS used by the Police (95) SMS, a little history (19) SMS, Television and Radio (53) Spam, Viruses and Hoaxes (222) Technology (1067) Text Alerts (40) Textually 2003 - The Year in Review (11) Tsunamis, South East Asia (79) Twitter (144) Archives by dates
November 2009 (23)
October 2009 (140) September 2009 (163) August 2009 (101) July 2009 (125) June 2009 (168) May 2009 (159) April 2009 (145) March 2009 (166) February 2009 (187) January 2009 (185) December 2008 (133) November 2008 (114) October 2008 (119) September 2008 (114) August 2008 (80) July 2008 (164) June 2008 (131) May 2008 (141) April 2008 (144) March 2008 (137) February 2008 (175) January 2008 (162) December 2007 (169) November 2007 (149) October 2007 (145) September 2007 (162) August 2007 (117) July 2007 (153) June 2007 (151) May 2007 (145) April 2007 (158) March 2007 (210) February 2007 (181) January 2007 (175) December 2006 (160) November 2006 (132) October 2006 (156) September 2006 (164) August 2006 (190) July 2006 (178) June 2006 (180) May 2006 (171) April 2006 (145) March 2006 (150) February 2006 (191) January 2006 (183) December 2005 (164) November 2005 (201) October 2005 (215) September 2005 (204) August 2005 (269) July 2005 (225) June 2005 (225) May 2005 (234) April 2005 (234) March 2005 (243) February 2005 (242) January 2005 (222) December 2004 (226) November 2004 (182) October 2004 (197) September 2004 (225) August 2004 (225) July 2004 (238) June 2004 (207) May 2004 (144) April 2004 (130) March 2004 (197) February 2004 (112) January 2004 (83) December 2003 (144) November 2003 (155) October 2003 (224) September 2003 (159) August 2003 (117) July 2003 (149) June 2003 (131) May 2003 (87) April 2003 (84) March 2003 (72) February 2003 (25) |