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A day after Google called out Bell for throttling BitTorrent traffic, and a few days before Rogers releases the iPhone in Canada to significant customer dissatisfaction (the latest news is that Apple won't even be selling iPhones from their own retail stores because of Apple's dissatisfaction with Rogers' pricing plans), Bell and Telus have decided to up the ante, lower the telecom bar, and infuriate their customers even more.
Canwest is reporting that in August, Bell and Telus will both begin to charge their pay-per-use users 15¢ per received text message—a service that was previously free and that is, notably, still free for Rogers customers. (Among all of the carriers, it typically costs money only to send a text message, not receive it.) Even more ludicrous, though, is that Telus is justifying the move as being motivated by anything but greed. But Telus Mobility spokesperson A.J. Gratton told Canwest that the "volume [of text messages] places tremendous demands on our network and we can't afford to provide this service for free anymore." Even at 10¢, a text message already costs the customer sending it almost five times more than it does to send the equivalent amount of data to the Hubble telescope. 15¢ per text message means that any time a customer sends or receives a message (which can't be bigger than 140 bytes), they are paying the equivalent of at least $1,101 per megabyte—and, if they are, say, Bell customers sending a message to other Bell customers, Bell makes the equivalent of at least $2,202 per megabyte. And we're, uh, guessing that some of that's profit.
We've said this before, but this is really getting ridiculous.
Photo by .natalie from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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Once again I'm reminded to call Bell and bitch them out about this. When do the low-cost carriers show up again?
I think this is the most ridiculous news I've heard in weeks.
I am astounded that Canadian telecom companies think they can get away with this. They are treating Canadian consumers like they are dribbling morons. When I arrived here I was astonished that you had to pay for incoming calls on your mobiles (it was free in the UK) and I'm still amazed that Rogers et al. get away with hidden fees for things like "caller display" and voicemail -- or especially that nonsense system access fee.
Even things like Fido's pay-as-you-go payments becoming worthless after a month is a joke. I bought a cheap Virgin mobile ($20) when in the US a while ago and I only have to top up every three months to keep getting incoming calls -- and if I don't, I keep my balance. and I'm not even charged for incoming, I think.
HilariouS!
: o
What are they thinking?
With the iPhone prices, Bell's throttling of p2p, ACTA and C-61, you'd think they were trying to slowly ban everything digital.
There is a petition to sign if you are against this cash grab.
"volume [of text messages] places tremendous demands on our network and we can't afford to provide this service for free anymore."
Right...as if...
I am with SOLO Mobile and got the same announcement that I'll be paying 15 cents for each incoming message, it is a Bell brand, though.
I agree that having to pay extra for call display and voice mail is absolutely ridiculous. Just put it on in the price and let people know how much you will be charging for usage, don't make it "optional", come on!
Matthew K, there is a tiny detail you forgot about the "free incoming calls" in your mobile in the UK, if you are the person making the call you pay more than a long distance call for it. The call is still being paid for, and at a premium, by the caller.
Charging for incoming anything is ridiculous. I also came here from Europe and the thought of the texts at 3am from drunk friends being chargeable would have caused uproar
Unfortunately the inability of Bell and Telus to roam their phones outside US/Canada with very few exceptions means they are getting murdered by Rogers because people do like to have their phones work when they go on holiday these days. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Plus - Bell just got taken over by the Teachers Pension Board - the same people who bring you overpriced Leaf tickets.
BTW - am not a Liberal but C-555 is worth supporting even if it's Dalton's brother proposing it. The Dippers have an anti-text-fee campaign.
http://warrenkinsella.com/index.php?entry=entry080708-151544
Matthew, I spend part of the year in England and have a Virgin mobile there, I've left it for more than 9 months and it's still ready to be charged up and go when I get back. And I receive calls for free and pay roughly the same per minute as I do here (30c vs 15p).
It's just a joke, I have no quibble with companies being profit-oriented, but this is gouging, pure and simple.
Ummm... text messages are sent as part of a mobile phone's *ping* packets that keep it connected to the cell network. They cost the telcos exactly $0.00.
That's why it's limited to 140 characters. And why the justification for this is absolutely ludicrous.
Saying that sms is placing "tremendous demands on [their] network" is functionally identical to saying that people having their phones turned on is overwhelming their network. i.e. it is complete and utter BS.
When a company explicitly and knowingly lies to its customers, does it open itself to legal proceedings re: fraud?
mobility@bell.ca
While one can choose not to answer an incoming call, we don't have the choice to not receive a text message. Although I think this new fee is completely unfair in general, I think I would be a little less angry if there was a way of accepting or denying a text (who hasn't received SPAM or texts from people we don't even know?). And as far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong), we can't even disable text messaging on our phone. How can we be so vulnerable to charges we can't even control?
@John Duncan - Having your phone turned on DOES create a serious demand on the network. You'll note in big public events that you'll have trouble getting a signal, never mind making a call.
Yes this is stupid, but they are trying to milk their pay-as-you-go customers. It's likely that their ARPU on these plans is far lower than desired and that usage indicates that many, many individuals were using them as pagers and not sending any packets. I could whip up a presentation and business case on why they should do this in a few hours just by making a few guesses as to what their data shows, never mind if I had access to actual numbers.
It's still a ridiculous practice, but pay-as-you-go has always been a marginal business in Canada anyways. We have very different consumption patterns to Europeans for mobile service, and the service just hasn't caught on like it was expected to. This will serve to drive customers to other vendors, which is probably the idea - cutting off unprofitable customers and focusing on profitable ones. See Angel Customers vs. Demon Customers for an explanation of how and why companies go about purging unprofitable business.
And to all of you pay as you go people - grow up and get a real cellphone!
>You'll note in big public events that you'll have trouble getting a signal, never mind making a call.
That's cause people are actually USING their phone not cause they have them turned on.
If that were the case, wouldn't all of downtown Toronto be unusable to get a signal?
reality check works for telus/bell? lol
I totally disagree with the current Txt Messaging fees, primarily because they are unrealistic when compared with the actual cost of the service to the telco. Hopefully Rogers does not follow suite.
In related news I've started to see Bell Payphones offering Txt Messaging (see link) which is sorta cool in a weird way.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyeline-imagery/2654091279/
There's a lot of companies out there right now offering FREE or cheap text messages. EQO, for instance, is a Vancouver mobile communications start-up that offers a free downloadable client that works with your existing phone and plan, and allows you to send and RECEIVE text messages for FREE when you send them to other EQO users.
check it out at http://www.EQO.com
it's a pretty sweet way to get around the telcos dipping in your pockets (and a legal way :) )
You can also send online thus avoiding the fee.
This is also great if you don't have a cell-phone but still want to Text a friend that you'll be late!
http://websms.rogers.page.ca/sendpcs/english/
http://www.telusmobility.com/sendamessage/sendamessage.shtml
http://www.txt.bell.ca/bell/en/