Photography with the Left Eye

Google, through its new-ish Google Voice* service, has proved that the cell phone providers in the US are price fixing.

My provider, T-Mobile, charges $0.20 per text message, for incoming and outgoing messages. Whether I want the message or not. So do the other big cell companies.

Google charges $0.00 per text message, for incoming and outgoing messages.

The real cost is somewhere in between. I think the real cost is much, much closer to the amount that Google charges. Let’s say $0.0001/msg. It’s probably less than that. But I will be generous, and even allow the providers to make 100% profit on their messaging service. So charge me $0.0002/message. But I am a little tired of being the (often unwilling) profit center for the cell companies.

FCC, are you listening?

*The Google Voice service was reviewed here last week. Mostly it is a good and accurate review, but as the comments point out, there are two errors:
-Contrary to the article, ALL US calls are free
-You can make a call from any of the phones you associate with your GV service…you do not need to be at or near your computer.

Krista