[SemanticFog]

Why change when you are hauling in billions of dollars per year, and there's nowhere to go but down? The mobile carriers are going to extract as many dollars as possible while they still can.

The fundamental problem is lack of competition. When there are only a small number of providers, none of them have an incentive to slash the price of texts to a more reasonable level.

[ajross]

I don't think this follows. In the US, for example, virtually every metro area has four national providers. They race against each other to roll out new devices and new network technologies.

The text charges are more of a historical addiction. Outside the US, voice charges were historically much higher (because they were priced to compete with the higher land line rates). So users flocked to SMS as a way to communicate more cheaply. In the US, voice charges on cell networks were comparatively cheap. Text was an "extra" that could be sold at a huge markup. And that revenue is hard to give up.

[hristiank]

I guess my issue with all of this is why competition has to be the only force to drive inovation and business development. But I guess the problem is much more deeper and in every industry, not just wireless. What is so wrong with still making a profit but actually creating a good service at affordable prices. I think I understand pretty good all the fundamentals behind their business decisions but still it leaves me wanting better services.