BlackBerryNews.com

Thursday

Verizon Wireless to charge content vendors 3-cent fee for text messages

mtletter2

No, it is not April Fool’s Day, far from it.

According RCR Wireless News, in a letter dated yesterday, Verizon has notified its content partners “that it will add a 3-cent fee for every MT (mobile terminated) message processed on its network beginning Nov. 1. MT messages typically include text alerts, interactive voting notifications and SMS search responses.”

Does this affect the end user, me?

Well, yes, it will affect me, if I am a constant recipient of Google SMS alerts, ESPN sports alerts, news alerts from local outlets and companies like 4INFO. Believe me, Google and ESPN are not going to absorb three cents a message for free. We (you) will pay for it in the end (well not me, I am not on Verizon—but don’t you think other carriers will follow suit?).

See the actual Verizon Wireless letter above, with my own commentary embedded.

Says RCR Wireless, “Countless companies could be affected by the new fee, from players in the booming SMS-search space (4INFO, Google Inc. and ChaCha) to media companies (CNN, ESPN and local outlets) to mobile-couponing startups (Cellfire) to banks and other institutions that use mobile as an extension of customer services.”

Click here for the entire story.

Discuss it below, BlackBerryNews.com welcomes your comments on this.

[via RCR Wireless]