Hasta La Gadget!

I finally got a chance to comb through the response letters AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee about their text messaging rates, and they all took offense to accusations of climbing prices.

“T-Mobile’s average revenue per text message, which takes into account the revenue for all text messages, has declined by more than 50 percent since 2005,” T-Mobile president and CEO Robert Dotson wrote.

In September, Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Business Rights and Competition, asked AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless “to explain why text messaging rates have dramatically increased in recent years.”

“Text messages were commonly priced at 10 cents per message sent or received in 2005. As of the end of the month, the rate per text message will have increased to 20 cents on all four wireless carriers,” Kohl wrote.

All four carriers responded to Kohl’s inquiry, though Verizon did not consent to having its letter released to the public.

“While it is true that the rate for casual text message usage has increased, Sprint does not agree that its overall rate for text messaging have increased over the past three years,” wrote Vonya B. McCann, vice president of government affairs for Sprint.