Maybe you have or haven’t noticed, but text message rates are increasing this year from 10 to 20 cents a message. Many of us are left grumbling and wondering why. Well, there actually isn’t much of an explanation, at least not one we can get our hands on.
When Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, asked major American phone companies about the text message rate increase, he received lengthy, but private written responses of the pricing plans.
Unfortunately, the responses are still not allowed to be released publicly. And when Randall Strauss of the New York Times tried to research this topic as well, his attempts to speak with mobile phone representatives were blocked. Big surprise.
What does this mean for us?
It might be time to look for other options, like push notifications. Push notifications alert your iPhone when a message has arrived from another service like Skype or Twitter.
And best of all, push is free. We all know that freedom comes with a price though. So, here are some pros and cons for both:
SMS Pros
* Always reliable. Text messages will always be delivered even if your phone is off or out of cellular range. Messages always appear when you are back on a network.
* SMS works on nearly all cell phones. American carriers have really worked hard to make sure almost all text messages were deliverable on all networks
SMS Cons
* It is still more expensive than push. If you go over your set amount of text-messaging, you have to deal with overage charges. That’s why phone carriers make so much money with SMS packages at $10 a month/unlimited vs. $5 with 200 SMS.
* You can’t opt out of SMS reception on your plan. If you want to experience exasperation, try convincing your cell phone carrier that you want to turn off SMS reception.
Push Pros
* It’s free! There are already more than 400 million registered, active Skype users, tens of millions of Twitter users, much more. Skype has just launched their iPhone application last March.
Push Cons:
* Your message may not always be delivered. To have your notification delivered, you must have a Wi-Fi network, and some global networks are already getting huffy about free push notifications.
For more information about push notifications and text-message comparisons, read Glenn Fleishman article, “When iPhone Pushes, Text Message Fees Fall“. Let us know what you think and which you prefer!
Tags: eHealth, medication reminders, rememberitnow
