Do you text message?

If so, check out this article in the New York Times about the cost of texts.

Senator Herb Kohl, D-Wisc., started to wonder why the price of text messages doubled in the past few years while at the same time, the number of cell phone providers consolidated from six to four in the United States.

Unfortunately, the four cell phone providers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint) guard the information about their margins on text messages with their collective corporate lives, letting only the highest in their hierarchies view the financials.

Now I text message. I love the service. I have an unlimited text message plan through AT&T, and I get rung up for $20 a month because of that. I am falling right into the cell companies most profitable segment, because I am not using as many texts as I should for the level I’m paying. I could use a lower plan (like 2,000 a month for $15) and pay less, but the fear of getting charged .15 cents a message or more for overages is enough to scare me into the unlimited plan.

The cell providers, I suppose, are ultimately entitled to charge as much as they want for the service as long as people use it, and don’t kid yourself, text messaging is growing exponentially. 3.3 trillion texts expected to be sent in 2009? Are you kidding me?

-Tyler