Is there any reason, beyond corporate greed, for SMS messages to cost so much?
If I get it right, an SMS message is just a short string of data, no different from a message we send in a messenger. If so, then what makes them so expensive? If we’d take Internet plans and consider how much data an SMS takes, we should pay tiny fraction of a cent for each message; why doesn’t that happen?
I pay $170/ month for two phones in the States. I wouldn’t say that SMS is free, but I can send an unlimited amount of messages with that plan.
Holy smokes that’s expensive :D 85 bucks per phone per month
Holy hell. Sure, I bought my phone (a OnePlus 9) out of pocket but I pay about 20 USD for unlimited calls and SMS with 5Gb of data per month (I can also save unused data from each month to the other up to 15Gb). This is in Sweden for reference.
85 per phone? did you get suckered into a contract+new “free” iPhone or something? I pay 40/mo for unlimited everything in the States but could be paying 25-30 if I wanted to switch providers.
SMS message costs are a scam, always have been. It takes like 1-2 seconds worth of talk time for the same amount of sending a text.
What provider are you using? Both AT&T and Verizon are on the order of $80/mo for an individual, down to like $30/person/mo for a family of 5.
T-Mobile prepaid. Mint mobile is also very cheap, but I think there is one cheaper now.
I just looked it up and the $40 T-Mobile prepaid plan has a 10GB data limit. Tbh that’s probably plenty for most people, but it’s not unlimited. Their $50/mo option is unlimited, with caveats (such as throttling once you’ve used too much data).
They are going to monitor your traffic and throttle based on estimated video streaming speed on any of their plans.
Still pretty good compared to ATT and Verizon. Unfortunately I’m stuck with the provider I’m using since they seem to be the only one with good cover wage in my area.
Ah I should have taken into account that I am grandfathered in from the AT&T takeover. That makes more sense.