14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Verizon thought it was about time for a boost in profits, and it decided to make a move that, while it might not seem that important, comes with major repercussions. The mobile carrier has announced its partners that it will add an extra 3 cent fee for every mobile terminated message that's going to be processed on its network, starting November 1. What this means is that this will apply to the alerts you receive on your mobile, the interactive voting notification and SMS search responses.
Naturally, this fee will be added to the current charges. According to Verizon, the new fees will apply to standard rate and premium programs, but not to Free-2-End-User (meaning, every text campaign where the sender pays the entire cost of the message, while the customer is not charged for receiving a message), Mobile Giving or Non-Profit organizational programs.
Even if the extra charging could be a good move for Verizon, it's not going to have the same effect on any service that sends out SMS messages. For instance, if we’re talking of millions of messages sent each month, this equals paying $30,000 more for every million text messages people send. This might mean that some companies that send SMS messages to users could suspend this feature for Verizon customers in reply to this measure.
Another thing that the extra charge might lead to will be the fact that other mobile carriers will increase their SMS fees, as a response to Verizon's action. The extra 3 cents means an extra 15 percent more income for the company, and since in any business is about profit, it would be understandable if other mobile carriers adopted the increase in SMS fees as well. However, this will only happen if the measure proves to be a successful one for Verizon. So let's hope it won't.