Bell and Telus to charge for incoming SMS

Girl mad about SMS

Paying for incoming SMS will likely lead to huge bills and angry customers.

You can’t stop someone from texting you. There aren’t any spam filters for your mobile phone just now, at least to my knowledge, so getting texts is almost completely out of your hands. Today, we got wind that Bell and Telus will start charging customers for INCOMING SMS. Outrageous, no?

Bell Mobility will begin charging customers 15 cents per incoming text message on Aug. 8. Telus Mobility is moving to the same billing practice effective Aug. 24. Until now, their pay-per-use customers who send text messages have been charged a 15-cent fee per message, but it hasn’t cost anything to receive them.

I understand that NA operators are jealous of their European counterparts but charging you for messages you can’t control isn’t reasonable. Rogers has said that it will not be charging for incoming messages and therefore we might see a lot of customers shift operators. Will Bell and Telus start showing the same subscriber loss as Sprint has been seeing these past months? I hope so.

[Via The Ottawa Citizen]

16 Responses to “Bell and Telus to charge for incoming SMS”

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1 Serge Mercier
July 8, 2008 at 12:14 pm

SIMPLY GREED…. There is no other word for it. They are not better that the OIL companies…..
I hope they lose a lot of business….
2 andrew
July 8, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Thank god I’m with Rogers already.
3 Hyde
July 8, 2008 at 12:37 pm

This is absolutely incredible. What’s to prevent one person from forcing another into an outrageous bill by sending them continuous text messages? Bell’s website has a space where you can send anonymous texts to mobile phones for no charge.

I hope they’re smart enough to not charge for their own solicitation texts.

Realistically speaking, if they don’t have a way to prevent/permit specific numbers from texting you, then there is likely a class-action lawsuit pending from all this.
4 master
July 8, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Ridiculous! Switch to Rogers and show Bell and Telus that they don’t deserve your business.
5 Dave
July 8, 2008 at 2:38 pm

Way to go Bell and Telus! Mobile rates in Canada are way too low as it is - surely B&T are entitled to a little more blood from us stones, no?
6 Dave Weatherall
July 8, 2008 at 4:22 pm

http://www.ndp.ca/page/6581
7 Kyle
July 8, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Thanks Dave for posting the NDP link. Good to know there are some Canadian politicians out there who are looking to do something about this.

We have reported before about Canadian politicians getting involved in the wireless industry.

http://www.blackberrycool.com/2008/06/26/007605/

In this article, Simon Sage of BlackBerry Cool, our sister site, interviews David McGuinty regarding Bill C-555 aka the Get Connected Fairly Act.

“Member of Parliament David McGuinty is heading up a little something called Bill C-555 (a.k.a the Get Connected Fairly Act), which is aiming to eliminate extraneous wireless costs like data overages and system access fees for Canadian consumers and enterprises in the hopes of increasing adoption and overall quality of life.”

I hope both David McGuinty and Jack Layton set aside partisan politics and realize what is best for the average Canadian.
8 Bambi Blue
July 8, 2008 at 4:48 pm

I absolutely agree with Hyde - Bell and Telus, as far as I’m aware, don’t have any methods in place to allow their customers to block text messages (from specific numbers or all together).

I predict, like most, that all that will come of this is a lot of hot water, some furious customers, and a slew of new Rogers users.
9 joey p
July 9, 2008 at 10:23 am

any celluar subscribers can have the smst Short message termination feature removed as an option from their cell phone profile
10 W4LNUT
July 9, 2008 at 11:18 am

Canadian Carriers hate the poorest of their clientele and don’t mind winding down pay-as-you-go minutes with add-ons like voicemail and texts. People with plans have the luxury of getting a texting package or add-on.

Rogers is an okay carrier but still sooooo expensive, I can’t wait to see what the top iPhone bill is in the first month, being that the ceiling on their so-called “unlimited” plans are unscrupulously low.
11 vanesa
July 10, 2008 at 11:01 am

look if you have a contract with unlimited text or even just 250 sms this does not concern you it only concerns the people who do not have those options and to the poeple who only write one or two sms a month!!! the tv and the internet exagerate alot you guys will see on your next bill…no change will be made if you have sms options!!!
12 Julien
July 10, 2008 at 4:07 pm

The NDP has launched a petition about this:
http://www.ndp.ca/page/6577
13 Pinky
July 10, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Try EQO http://www.EQO.com - its an online mobile community - free messages to other users (or invite your own), no cost to you, your buddy, or from your telco. oh yeah.
14 adrian
July 11, 2008 at 7:31 am

Vanesa, you have a point, I suppose, but its those people who don’t text a whole lot who are really going to feel the pain from this. They text on occasion, but they might still receive lots of texts from friends. Something they can’t control.

Also, if they implement this like it is in the US, then when you receive an SMS, it takes away from your monthly allotment of SMSs. So people who previously got by with those 250 SMS per month will find themselves cut short.
15 Kyle
July 11, 2008 at 9:14 am

Sorry, I just got the iPhone. Bell who? Telus what? Oh you mean those carriers that don’t have the slickest phone on the planet? Bellus shmellus.
16 admin
August 14, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Just wanted everyone to know this story has been updated:
http://www.quicklybored.com/2008/08/canadian-minister-on-incoming-sms-charges-tough-luck/