Monday, July 28, 2008

U R Getn Scrwd: Bell and Telus To Charge $937.50 Per Mb Of Text

Get a calculator and you can see for yourself the screwing Canada's two biggest cellular phone companies are going to be handing out, starting in August when they begin charging customers without monthly plans 15 cents to receive each text message that someone else already paid to send.

An SMS text message uses a maximum of 160 bytes of data. A Megabyte (Mb) is one million bytes of data. Therefore, it takes 6,250 text messages to make 1 Mb of data.

Fifteen cents times 6,250 equals $937.50.

Put another way: Bell and Telus want to charge customers over sixty times the cost of uploading the same-sized video from a cell phone with Terracom, the major carrier in Rwanda.

Bell and Telus justify their screwing of Canadian customers by pointing out that most U.S. carriers are screwing their customers the same way. "Charging for incoming text messages is a standard practice in North America with most of the major U.S. carriers charging for incoming and outgoing text messages" sayeth Telus. What Bell and Telus don't tell you is that said American carriers are currently the subject of a a class action lawsuit over their text message price gouging.

Fortunately, Canadian customers have overcome their traditional passivity and are now launching a class-action suit of their own over the matter.

Let's hope this latest cash grab ends before it begins.

(Posted by Matthew from The Church Of Mothra, filling in while Cliff`s away... just like that time Bruce Wayne got Alfred to dress like Batman to cover his secret identity so he could attend The Penguin`s Republican fundraiser.)

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