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Senator Investigating Increasing Text Messaging Prices

by Terrence O'Brien on September 10, 2008 at 11:10 PM

Senator Investigating Increasing Text Messaging Prices
Rising text messaging costs are annoying, but it turns out they might also be criminal. Senator Herb Kohl (Democrat, Wisconsin), a prominent member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who heads up the subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, has targeted the cell phone companies for suspiciously anticompetitive practices.

A couple of years back in 2005, just about every cell phone company in the country simultaneously decided to increase their text messaging prices from ten cents a message to twenty cents. Normally, in a competitive marketplace (especially in the world of technology and gadgets), companies force each other to lower prices and try to undercut each other, but most cell phone providers seem to be in lockstep price-wise.

Kohl is also worried that this uncharacteristic increase in fees occurred at the same time the mobile field was consolidated from six companies to four. With the Verizon buyout of Alltel on the horizon, Kohl fears further price hikes and more trouble for the consumer. [From: USA Today]

Tags: antitrust, herb kohl, HerbKohl, investigation, senate, sms, text messaging, texting, TextMessaging

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