The end of Unlimited Text Messaging in Canada

Bell Mobility will begin charging 15 cents per incoming text message on Aug. 8. Telus Mobility will do the same from Aug. 24.

Until now, their pay-per-use customers who send messages have been charged 15 cents per message, but it hasn't cost anything to receive them.

If you thought gas prices were rising too quickly, check out what's been happening to text messaging.

Since 2005, rates to send and receive text messages on all four major carrier networks have doubled from 10 cents to 20 cents per message. This percentage of increase is on par with similar price hikes at the gas pump as crude oil prices skyrocket. In 2005, Americans paid on average about $2.27 per gallon for gas compared with more than $4 a gallon today.

Text messaging has ballooned in popularity since inter-carrier service came to Canada in 2002.

In its first year, there were 369,000 text messages sent every day, or 11 million annually. Today, Canadians send 45.4 million per day, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. And cellphone subscribers sent 4.1 billion in the first quarter of this year, close to the annual total of 4.3 billion sent in 2006 and on track to surpass the 10.1 billion sent last year.

“The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that's 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that's £374.49 per MB - or about 4.4 times more expensive than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs.”

It's one of those industries many Canadians use every day, don't like to pay for, and love to hate.

Now Liberal MP David McGuinty wants to crack down on the cellphone industry, which he says has collected billions of dollars in "misleading" charges over the last 25 years. The Ottawa MP is proposing legislation to ban so-called system-access fees charged by cellphone providers.

McGuinty says 911, overage, data and roaming surcharges can double advertised monthly rates for an industry that's turning a $4-billion-a-year profit.