How Much Are You Paying For SMS Bandwidth? > I pay nothing with Sprint SERO.. I also don't pay for data.

I pay nothing with Sprint SERO.. I also don't pay for data.

Same here. Except I pay $30 plus junk fees (I want to say 25% added onto my bill...and some of 'em are carrier-imposed so it's just wrong) for 500 minutes and the above.

I was on prepaid and didn't use very many minutes (like 150) but now I use a lot more minutes (which is fine with me...I'm covered) and have used 550 texts so far this month. So since supply went up, demand went up . I have unlimited text, so I signed up for Twitter and Facebook alerts.

Then again, that's just gravy when looking at the fact that I get unlimited email messages on my phone, with no character limit. I've used...dunno...more email messages than text message more'n'likely if I actually had to count them.

So for me the cost per MB of data, even including text, is negligable. Since I live in an EvDO area and download podcasts over the air to my Mogul, then tether to do some light surfing (mind you, light) when I'm away from WiFi and other means of connection with my laptop. RIght now I'm using 1xRTT and will probably use 3MB or so on this quick 'net browsing session.

This one session would cost me $30 on a pay-per-kilobyte plan...my whole cellular plan costs that much!

Moral of the story: if you use it a good bit, get unlimited and stop complaining. If you use it and stay in a relatively small location range, get an unlimited plan from the local carrier (there's one in my area called Pocket...I'm not with them anymore because I roam around a bit...or get CricKet or such) and pay $3-$5 for unlimited text messaging...and they usually include unlimited picture messaging in that price. Price per MB? Well, if you send a few hundred texts a month you're paying a penny per KB...

...sorry to keep going with this post, but I appreciate the usage of text message. For stuff like IM, less advanced phones use text. Plus you have stuff like Google SMS, again for less advanced phones. And for quick notes (which don't really need to be quick...you can put like 25-30 words in a message if you must...and I do with my keyboard-equipped Mogul) that you don't want to annoy people to call 'em ith or suchlike, that are compatible with 99.99% of cell phones out there, text works!

It's interesting to find out exactly how texting works, and how it's a highly efficient cash-cow of a 2G technology, and it enlightens you to the fact that in a free economy the price is what you pay for it...or don't, unless competition wants to ompete in that area. In my opinion, you have a few choices with texting, which is of course overpriced: turn it off (costs you $0), get a texting plan (or phone plan) that'll fit your needs and give yu a better per-message rate, or look at prepaid plans where minutes invariably cost 2-3x as much as text messages...and use them if you don't talk much!

So to su up, there are those of us who want\need text, and there are ways to get it that don't involve enriching the best. Case closed.