This was touched on in the 'best new mobiles' thread, but I thought it was quite interesting, and I was wondering what other people thought.

If I remember correctly, each ASCII character is one byte long. An SMS text message contains a maximum of 160 characters, and with headers/phone number etc. that's maybe 200 bytes.

Now Vodafone, even on their highest rip-off GPRS tariff, charge 2 pence per kilobyte.

So to me that implies that a text message should cost 0.4 pence.

So how the hell do the phone companies come up with a price of 12p? Surely this is just blatant profiteering?

Great point people should be aware of this when they are sending 25p text's to BB£ to vote ppl out

The interconnect prices that mobile companies charge each other for text messages is 3 pence per message. Messages on the same network do not incur a interconnect fee & are therfore techincally involve not cost whatsoever. Only real costs are keeping the network running. Now there is the tricky bit! I think Oftel are looking at the price of text messages so dont hold your breath!

Vodafone are by far the most expensive for text messages at 12p all the others charge 10p (Pay As You Talk call charges) Orange with an Out Here pack gives you 5 Free text messages a day. Vodafone have the highest profit level of any of the mobile operators & now you know why!

o2 still charge 12p.



it costs 25p PLUS the cost of a text message, meaning you can pay upto 37p.

Only naturaly for operators too tap into the SMS/texting, its becoming so popular people arent even talking much at all just texting.

Texting should be free too

12p O2 charge is on contracts not Pay as Talk which I was referring to.

Hence:

Quote:
“(Pay As You Talk call charges)”

In my origional message.

However if you want to get discounted or even free text messages on contracts you can. There are numerous contracts far too many to go into but the cheapest Contract for text messages appears to be Orange Talk 5,000/10,000 with 4p per message. The only problem is it costs £470 per month for Talk 5,000 or £940 per month for Talk 10,000 Much cheaper on one of the new Talk & Text type tarrifs which offer anything from 50 to 600 Free text messages per month. 600 is for Genie.

You shoule be aware that it costs a mobile network next to nothing to send a text message, and for going on Vodaphone u want a slap! got no common sence? shop around! Vodaphone taffifs suck more cock than i do! and thats a lot !

Anyway moving swiftly on,text messages are VERY CHEAP!!!
I remember when my dad was on contract in the early 90's costing 50p for a text message! so think your self lucky! and when MMS comes out, they are expecting operators to charge £0.80p a MMS!. some people do not really know when 5p a text is a bargin, or when Vodablows sucks, brain transplant anybody?

Very cheap??? Hardly. The cost per byte makes it one of the most expensive forms of communication readily available.

MMS will be more expensive, but you'll be sending a lot more data. Not going to get much in the way of mulitmedia in 140 bytes, are you?

SMS messages are routed using the companies' switched circuits - in the same way as the voice comms. GPRS data is packet based - ie. as soon as it hits Vodafone's network, it's routed onto the Internet. This makes it extremely cheap. The SMS on the other hand, never leaves the mobile network and is routed internally there or onto another operator's network, and finally across the airwaves again to it's destination.

I'm not saying that the price of SMS messages is fine - just that you can't compare it like for like with GPRS data, as it isn't data. It's timesliced in the same way as the voice traffic - and therefore you can compare it to voice conversations.

Take the most expensive rate of 50p/min for a voice call, and say an SMS takes around 5 - 10 seconds of airtime to send (listen to your telly or radio when you send something!) at the absolute most, based on this comparison that means that a message should cost between 6p to 12p. If the networks consider messaging to be a premium service (which it shouldn't be), it's not looking that bad a price now!

The other thing to consider is market forces; supply and demand. If sales of something is slowing down and there isn't a take up, prices will drop to stimulate it. However, if sales of something are exceeding all expectations and increasing all the time, why should they lower the price? People are still paying it so what's the problem?

If you're someone who sends lots of SMS messages, get a tariff with messages included!

Rubbish. SMS is routed on the signalling network, and uses minimal network resources - less than that required for a call aborted due to the called party being engaged. They only charge this much because they can, not because it uses any real amount of resource. On most tarrifs, a 5 minute off-peak call to a landline costs less than a text message, which is scandalous.

Also, the 3p for network interchange is a smokescreen. For the networks, it cancels itself out. (i.e. O2 customers will send roughly the same number of SMS messages to Vodafone numbers as vice versa.) It was purely a way for them to squeeze out free SMS services.

I pay Sweet FA for texts (having had two different Genie mobiles, one Pay-go and now a contract one)

And WAP becomes so much more useful when you don't pay for it either

Yes, it is routed as signalling data, not on a bearer circuit.

But on the other hand, it does tie up the base station the same as a voice call.

Even so, you're right - the charges are scandalous and are only because people seem to be prepared to pay them. The fact that genie (or whatever they're called now) can offer mobiles with unlimited free text messages shows how little they must actually cost the network.

What exactly in my post was rubbish then?? You go on to say that the SMS is routed on the signalling network, as I said, it stays on the network. I just didn't say which network!

The fact is, as sprouty76 pointed out, the SMS ties up the base stations the same as a voice call. If that send takes 10 seconds, that 'cost' can be compared to a voice call. That was all I was pointing out.

Just incase anybody's interested, here are the prices for text messages in Ireland on Pay as you go.. Its one of the few services thats actualy cheaper over here!
I included in a rough sterling conversion..:
As with the UK, Vodafone have the highest price/msg

Vodafone (ex eircell) :
13c (8p stg)

o2 (ex Digifone) :
11c [weekdays] (7p stg)
8c [weekend] (5p stg)

Meteor :
7c (4p stg)

They're not unlimited, you're 'limited' to 600 on contract (bit less on prepay, can't remember how much). Or if you signed up after the name change to O2 Online then you get 500. Well worth the switch, except the network isn't as good as I was used to on Vodafone

Has anyone noticed Orange sneaked their prices up for text messages when they introduced their new tariffs ???

I used to be around 7p a message on talk 120. Now it's 10p across the whole range of tariffs. It used to be that the higher the tariff you pay, the lower the cost.

PAYG customers on Orange get the best deal on Texting. If they purchase a £50 voucher, texts only cost 5p

Who thinks this is fair ???

Oh and going a bit off topic, who noticed they binned the Orange Equity programme ?? What happens to my points ??? I haven't heard any word from them !!!!!

I suppose it will be a couple of months now before we are being charged 50p for sending an MMS. Dig Deep !!!!

O2 seem to be getting their act together on pay monthly tariffs now. A lot of them are offering text messages in with the airtime, and also allowing cross network calling for your inclusive minutes. I have just changed my tariff to the O2 100 Online one giving 100mins of calls to any phone, 300 text and 300 mins of WAP access for £25/month. Only problem with this tariff is it only seems to be advertised on the O2 website itself. Before this I was getting done for about £15-20/month for text messages alone which are all now free.

Blimey, I didn't realise the tariffs had changed so much. I'm paying £14.99 for 100mins anytime (no other networks, not a problem as most people I call are on O2), 600 textmessages a month, with free wap. From being with Singlepoint (total s*ite!) and having monthly bills of £80-£120 it's dropped down to £20-£30

methinks the 'profiteering' service providers are in this business to make money and have set their prices to whatever the general public are willing to pay...

just my 0.4 pence worth...

nid

Now I know why I decided to keep my old BT Cellnet phone, which is on the `U` tariff, it`s only 5p a txt message