why a charge for incoming SMS?

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Andy M - Tampa Bay - 11 Jan 2006 19:17 GMT

On a recent trip to South Africa and Kenya, and on previous trips to the UK,
Ireland, and India, I noticed that cellular networks don't charge their
customers for incoming SMS. Why then do US cellular carriers charge their
customers? For one thing, why should I pay to receive an SMS? I didn't ask
the other fella to send me one. I'd appreciate if someone could offer a
rational explanation to this situation.

I guess the same argument applies to calls. Why get charged to receive?

Andy M - Tampa Bay.

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BruceR - 11 Jan 2006 20:27 GMT

Short answer - because they can. Pricing models between countries differ
and in many parts of the world the caller pays to call a cellphone
number. The difficulty is that, unless all cell calls began with a
unique prefix, a caller wouldn't know whether they're calling a cell
number or not. Of course SMS is a different story - clearly one knows
that they're sending it. Since most carriers won't let you turn SMS
receiving off it's a particularly annoying policy!

From:Andy M - Tampa Bay
nospamandym@yahoo.com

> On a recent trip to South Africa and Kenya, and on previous trips to
> the UK, Ireland, and India, I noticed that cellular networks don't
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> receive?
> Andy M - Tampa Bay.

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