Loading ...The battle to keep the Internet free and open now has a new challenge to add to its already long list. Mobile carrier T-Mobile is reportedly planning to charge an additional fee to businesses that send texts over its network.
Also, earlier this month, T-Mobile had a lawsuit filed against it by EZ Texting, which is a company that helps businesses send mass marketing messages to consumers. EZ Texting accuses T-Mobile of blocking access to its network because it conducts business with a website that provides information about medical marijuana.
Regarding this case, Gigi Sohn, the president and co-founder of Public Knowledge, said, “This case is yet another example of a totally arbitrary decision by a carrier to block text message calls between consumers and organizations they want to communicate with. The FCC should put a fast end to this blocking by issuing the ruling we asked them for three years ago.”
As a result of these recent developments, some groups are beginning to ask that net neutrality be extended to mobile platforms. If not, they fear that innovation would plummet in the mobile industry.
ChaCha, the question and answer service based on sending text messages, has spoken out toward this cause. Scott Jones, the company’s CEO and co-founder, has even said that if T-Mobile carries out its plan to enforce the tax, it would have to drop T-Mobile customers from its SMS services.
On the other hand, T-Mobile justifies its actions by saying it is trying to prevent against unsolicited commercial texts. The mobile carrier also believes its action would be a net positive for its partners.
Incidentally, T-Mobile’s tax would not include companies such as Facebook and Twitter.
A hearing for EZ Texting is set for tomorrow, September 30. Also, if T-Mobile follows through and does impose its new fee, companies will feel the effects of it on October 1.
As this net neutrality fight continues, what do you think of these recent activities and their implications?
If T-Mobile implements this I can imagine they will lose a number of corporate clients. Instead of trying to find loop-holes that they can use to charge people more money, why not increase your customer care division? Why do that? Because all these companies have employees that talk to people from other companies and when they see that T-Mobile isn’t instituting extra fees but is taking excellent care of my corporate account they will see a great deal of positive conversion. I remember when the term customer service was real and not just a phone number with a computer on the other end.
I remember when the concept of charging senders of commercial email a small fee for each email sent was proposed to curb spam. Even though I hate spam I think it was a good idea that never happened. I can tell you one thing- if T-mobile did this I would no longer be a T-mobile customer. But most customers won’t even be aware of the change and what happens if all carriers enact such a policy?
As an Inbound Marketing Consultant working with small and medium-sized businesses, I of course see this as wrong on so many different levels it’s difficult to know where to begin. So let me just ask one of the more obvious questions. Hey T-Mobile, why would Facebook and Twitter be exempted from this “text tax?” What’s the magic number of advertising dollars that needs to be attributed to a source before it can be “free?”
Dont know to much about the story but the reporter is pretty hot.
Some companies are so focused on making a buck, that the rest of us will soon have to pay for more and more of the possibilities online. Take your hands of the internet – it’s for everyone.
“Incidentally, T-Mobile’s tax would not include companies such as Facebook and Twitter.”
It is incorrect to refer to this as a ‘tax’. Taxes, by definition, are charges added to certain business transactions by government entities to pay for government services that may or may not be related to said transaction. Since T-Mobile is not a government entity, they do not have the power to levy a tax.
I don’t think it’s unfair for T-Mobile to charge companies that use their platform and services to make a profit. It’s greedy, to be sure, but they seem confident that demand can withstand their greed. I think they’ll be able to get away with it, if they’re not court-smashed for anti-trust issues in letting certain cronies off the hook. As long as they charge everyone the same fees and don’t discriminate, then it’s up to the “info service” whether they care to pay and the customer to decide if they’re no longer getting enough free texts. In my experience, people are remarkably apathetic. As long as their own bill doesn’t get jacked up, it’s all good.
The bottom line is that it’s their service and their equipment, so those who want to use it to make a profit may be expected to share the wealth. I think T-Mobile is being greedy, but I don’t like the idea of forcing companies to provide favors (such as carrying for-profit messages) at no charge because… well, they’re just so dang rich already. “Net Neutrality” was envisioned to protect the internet, which I consider to be much more vast and vital than SMS service. There’s no crucial innovation to be had in the field – it’s all just a bunch of money grubbing on everyone’s part.
I don’t think that this would be fair to charge twice for text messages. The consumer already pays for their text messages that they receive or send. T-Mobile wants to charge businesses that are not on their network, to send into their network. This is charging twice for the same messages. IF people really knew how much profit was in the text messaging plans for the providers they would really stand up and take action.
T-Mobile is at the bottom of the US Cellular Carrier market for a reason!
I agree with Paul. This additional charge to content providers sure smells like double dipping. As a previous employee of a SMS content provider, I know that carriers get something for every message a short code sends across their network now, plus as Paul mentioned they get a monthly fee from the consumer. Now on October 1 they want to charge more and that “more” seems is a hefty increase per message especially when speaking in ad terms (CPM/eCPM). Also speaking with people in companies that have ad-supported services, there is no way the market will support the cost of this additional charge. The other puzzling item in this article is the fact that Facebook and Twitter, likely the 2 largest text users, are not being charged the additional fee. Seems to create a very unfair playing field. What if this charge was implemented prior to Twitter and Facebook becoming what they are today? Do you think they would have been able to grow as fast, if at all.
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