On the Take Back the Beep thing

I applaud David Pogue for actually deciding to do something about the asininity of the cellphone companies. But I feel like this Take Back The Beep is not really the right front to attack on. Though it is a front that is probably winnable and that’s probably why he picked it.

But honestly, who the heck cares about cellphone voicemail? I’ve, for the most part, given up on leaving voicemail especially on cellphones. Let’s face it whatever it was you were calling about probably isn’t going to fit comfortably in a voicemail. Which means the message is, “call me back when you get a chance, bye.” The missed call indicator does that pretty well as it is. Once I know you are not around I hang up. At this point I’ll either try an alternate number, send an email, or send a text message. This approach mostly stems from the fact that an ever growing minority of people I call won’t even bother to listen to their voicemail anyway. I do listen to mine, but usually I have to call the person back anyway so what was the point of leaving the message? So it would be nice if we didn’t need to worry about the air time wasting messages, but let’s face it voicemail is on it’s way out. So even if consumers win this fight they aren’t really winning that much.

No, what I think consumers should get really really pissed off about is text message charges. Text messages are, for all intense and purposes, free to the carriers and yet they charge a ridiculously high data rate for them. Not only that, they double bill that data rate charging both the sender and the receiver. (They do this on phone calls also). Nowhere else but the US cellphone industry are both parities in a communication charged for it. It’s ridiculous. The companies charge a gouging fee to both parities (and all carriers have the same fee at this point, there is no competition on this) above and beyond what they charge for “unlimited data”. Seriously, if company started charging cellphone industry markups in the wake of a natural disaster there would be felony charges. Clearly it is not “unlimited data” text messages and MMS are just data, and yet those don’t fall under unlimited data, they are an extra charge. It is highway robbery and I think if there is a battle to be fought this is where to do it. Something that will only become more important in the future. Something that is ludicrously expensive for what it is and something about which there is, at least, the appearance of collusion and price control.

So what do you all think? Fight the good fight for voice mail? or Fight the good fight on text message charges? Let’s at least try and put a stop to double billing? How on earth does it take 40 cents to send a text message. Why I could very nearly send you a letter for that price. And at least a couple of post cards.