Monday, October 23, 2006

International calling / SMS rates -- Why so high?

Okay, BLADAM friends, apologies for two rants in a row (in a sadly otherwise dry AdamBloggingSeason), but… why does T-mobile—an international company—charge so much for international calling, roaming, and texting?

And Cingular—the only other American mobile phone company I know of that supports international roaming—has rates that are even worse, from what I gather.

Anyway, on T-Mobile, the rates for me to call from the U.S. overseas are more than triple what I’d pay via a discount calling card or even AT&T Callvantage.  Calling from overseas to *anywhere* ranges from about $1 to $4 a minute for incoming OR outgoing calls.

But what *really* gets my hide is T-Mobile’s charge for text messages sent to and from my friends in Europe.  15 cents each for me to send a handful of text characters, and 35 cents each to receive the same.  What the heck?!  I know, I know, this voluminous amount of data has to potentially pass through companies that aren’t T-Mobile, but still!  And no, T-Mobile’s varied texting-bundle plans do *not* include international SMSes.

I’ve played with various SMS options online, but haven’t found any to be reliable for either sending or receiving text messages internationally.  Oh lazyweb, anyone know of good options? (other than calling up T-Mobile and telling them they’re provincial jerks for their usurious rates, which, I admit, doesn’t exactly qualify as a good option)
Written by at 10/23/2006 02:14:00 PM
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19 comments:

  1. ThomasBOct 23, 2006 11:46 PM
    Adam, I know your pain. I’m currently in frequent contact with somebody from the US and the costs for text messages from my German T-Mobile to her US T-Mobile are just way too high. Unfortunately I haven’t found a good way around it either, but once I have I’ll let you know. If you figure a way out, tell me. :-)
    ReplyDelete
  2. RyanNov 3, 2006 04:44 PM
    Adam, I run Txt2Day - a free text message site…  what countries / cell phone providers are you trying to send messages to?

    hit me up with an email of where you’re having difficulty sending and I’ll add support to my website for it.  Then, you’ll just be on your own with the replies… but the sending will be free.
    ReplyDelete
  3. Joe DuckNov 9, 2006 09:06 PM
    Rant on, dude!  I suspect it’s market driven but I’m also confused about text pricing which seems to run contrary to their costs.
    ReplyDelete
  4. wentasurfinNov 18, 2006 12:36 PM
    hey there, check www.bliblo.com
    I use the South African site, can’t view International - so I can’t compare rates for you.  But hey, by South African standards they rock for data rates!
    ReplyDelete
  5. JuliaDec 16, 2006 02:27 PM
    I am from Germany but live in the US, also using t-mobile.  I use www.3Utelecom.com for my calls to Europe, they charge 4.8 cents/minute and bill by the second, no signup fees, no monthly base-fee, they bill you only for what you talk.  Very convenient if you register your cell phone with them - you don’t have to enter any codes like with a calling card.  Been using them for four years now, nice guys.  I don’t text message, so can’t say anything about that, but I hear your pain.  - Maybe this helps.  Have a good one!
    ReplyDelete
  6. AdamDec 16, 2006 02:42 PM
    Thomas, glad I’m not the only one ;-)

    Ryan… neat service, and I got a test SMS I sent to myself (in the U.S.) in about 2 seconds!  But I really would prefer to have my friends be able to reply directly to me, and—understandably—they can’t do that with your generously free service.

    Joe, maybe it’s ‘cause they assume that people sending international text messages are doing so for business (a much smaller percentage of folks, probably, internationally text friends socially).  And, as we all know, it’s all about socking it to the business folks.

    Wentasurfin… fascinating service, but not quite text messages ;-)

    Julia… yep, that’s seemingly reasonable (though, perhaps surprisingly, AT&T CallVantage charges me even less!), but cheap LD is a dime a dozen, so to speak.  I think that’s ‘cause there’s competition there, whereas we’re locked into a single provider for bidirectional text messaging.  No competition = screw the customer, I guess.
    ReplyDelete
  7. Ben PfeifferDec 27, 2006 08:11 AM
    Just saw this post, a bit late, but was glad to know someone else is annoyed by the high rates. When I try to call my brother in China with t-mobile the rate is $1.64/minute. Its incredibly expensive.
    Cingular does offer a international plan that lets users call internationally for 0.15 a minutes as well as a monthly fee of $5-15. A lot cheaper than t-mobile, I wish they could do something similar.
    ReplyDelete
  8. AlexJul 10, 2007 02:31 AM
    I use Internet telephony, it saves me a lot of money.
    ReplyDelete
  9. JennAug 4, 2007 11:14 AM
    I feel your pain. I had a foreign exchange student stay with me and now I can’t keep in contact with him without it costing a ton! I’ve found a lot of places online that you can send messages to the receivers phone, but you might as well just im them from AIM or MSN. AT&T came out with international SMS but once again it is expensive. 100 text messages for $10. Not much of a bargain but i guess we’re still living in the stone age. If you find anything. Post it. I’m sure there are a lot more people out there struggling with the same problem we do.
    ReplyDelete
  10. BeeAug 28, 2007 05:01 AM
    I don’t know how this service works from the US, but I have used Blitzplanet
    to send cheap picture messages and text messages from Germany and Spain to the UK.

    I know that it works from the UK to the US, the charges for international SMS are 10p,
    which is a lot cheaper than the average of 35p we are charged here.
    With Blitzplanet I can also send picture messages at just 10p.

    The service is free download, and sits on your computer like any application would ‘Snakes’
    for example; it works quite like Skype, but it requires only the sender to have the service installed
    to send SMS or picture messages internationally.

    This service works only if the user has Internet, NOT WAP, installed. So the user needs to add
    an Internet data package to their phone. They need GPRS.

    Every time a message is sent off a maximum of 160 bytes is deducted from that data package,
    this leaves users with hundreds of messages to send on just one MB.

    There are free trial options on the site, the benefits over the other services here,
    is that Blitzplanet doesn’t use re-routing, so you can used your contact address
    book on your phone.

    There’s lots more to the service, just go to the website.
    ReplyDelete
  11. BeeAug 28, 2007 05:06 AM
    forgot to mention the URL http://www.blitzplanet.com
    ReplyDelete
  12. JohnFeb 25, 2008 02:44 AM
    It’s just because, while calling at distance level,
    service operator need to use services of another services provider, signals are going to transfer from their towers and than it will reach to us.
    ReplyDelete
  13. ChristopherMay 8, 2008 08:22 AM
    I bought a T-Mobile SIM Card it’s PAYG but everyone time I send a international text it sends but when I want to receive international texts it doesnt send to me

    any reasons why?
    Do i need to activate it?
    I get messages from the UK but not from international
    ReplyDelete
  14. Online ShoppingMay 22, 2008 07:50 AM
    Now i have got few websites which allow us to join for free and allow to send text messages all over the world and getting from my friend too.
    ReplyDelete
  15. KathyJun 1, 2008 06:24 AM
    My daughter is travelling in Europe, with a Netherlands prepaid Tmobile phone.  Does anyone know how I could purchase prepaid minutes for her, from here in the US?  Tmobiles giftcard site doesn’t seem to work for internatational nbrs.
    ReplyDelete
  16. allergyJun 19, 2008 12:42 AM
    even i prefereed to send email and sms due to higher rate.
    ReplyDelete
  17. BrianSep 1, 2008 07:49 PM
    I just took a job in Iceland to play basketball. I am looking for the best way to be able to talk to my girlfriend in the United States. Anyone with any information on the best cell phone rates, companies, anything please tell me. I dont want to spend alot of money but I am willing to pay alil so I can talk to my girl. I looked into t mobile and att but its so expensive. I heard to buy a unlocked phone and just get a sim card over there but I dont know much about that..Anyone with anything..I would apprecaite it.
    Thanks guys
    ReplyDelete
  18. AlDec 12, 2008 07:02 AM
    http://Send2World.com offers cheap messages between Taiwan, USA, and Canada.  You can even try it for Free, no credit card needed.
    ReplyDelete
  19. AdamMay 24, 2009 07:46 AM
    Well, now Google Voice offers free texting, but alas, unless you had a Grand Central account, the service isn’t available yet publicly :-(. 

    As a Googler, I’ve been using it for a while and really like it, so… the moment it’s out, jump on it! :-)

    In the meantime, check out this help page and sign up on the waiting list via the leave-us-your-address link!
    ReplyDelete

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