Bell & Telus: "All your txts R belong to us"

Yesterday I received a phone call by Rebecca Lau from Global News requesting an interview to discuss my opinion on Bell and Telus’s move to start charging their customers for inbound text messages. She tracked me down via this blog and noticed that I write about technology a bit so naturally I knew a lot about this sorta thing (i’m not going to lie, i’m no expert!) I was upfront with her and told her that I had not been tracking the story but I would call her back after a bit of quick research on “the Google” regarding this issue.

After thinking the situation over I positioned my opinion based off of the fact that more and more people are using text messaging services so the demand is on the rise however this does not justify the double billing. The part of the interview that was used was when I mentioned that Bell and Telus are trapping their customers into paying for text messaging plans vs pay per use which I would imagine the majority of mobile users are currently set up on. Both Bell and Telus claim that it will save you money if you sign onto a text message plan. This is a half truth.

Personally I rarely use my text messaging services because I think it’s silly when the majority of my friends have facebook, email and good ol’ fashioned telephones. Most of my text messages are conducted when i’m traveling, responding to an inbound text, or when i’m in a quiet area where a phone call is not acceptable like at a movie or funeral. (ok i’ve never texted at a funeral, that’s just evil) To be honest, I don’t even know how much I pay for texting nor do i care (until now). I think I would consider myself a “casual texter” who probably doesn’t text more than 10 - 15 times / month. So when you break it down…if i send and receive 15 text messages at 30 cents a pop that’s $4.50 / in text charges. So under the old system I would have paid half of that. Well the cheapest Bell text plan is $5.00 which gives you up to 100 text messages / month. This isn’t THAT big a jump in your phone bill. Now say you send 50 text messages at 15 cents a pop (the old billing system with no text plan), this would cost you $7.50 (double that to $15 with the new billing system). Doesn’t it make sense to pay for a $5 text plan that gives you 100 text messages? Problem solved. This is a non-issue for me because by next week I will probably have an iPhone! I really don’t think there is reason to be alarmed for this move. The only people that will be “somewhat” upset are those of the older generation or those who do not text outbound but still receive junk text from marketing companies. Bell and Telus will give you the option to call in to have these spam text charges removed, but seriously…who is going to sit on hold for 20 minutes over a 15 cent charge? Read CTV’s story here.

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