The chair of the U.S. Senate's antitrust panel sent a letter to four top mobile phone companies on Tuesday asking them to explain what he said were a doubling in the price of text messages in three years.
Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the antitrust subcommittee and a Wisconsin Democrat, wrote to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, Sprint Nextel Corp and T-Mobile to express concern about “what appear to be sharply rising rates your companies have charged to wireless phone customers for text messaging."
Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.
Kohl, noting the four companies served more than 90 percent of U.S. mobile phone users, said the cost of sending or receiving a text message had doubled since 2005 to 20 cents on all four carriers.
“What is particularly alarming about this industrywide rate increase is that it does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," said Kohl.
Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the antitrust subcommittee and a Wisconsin Democrat, wrote to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc, Sprint Nextel Corp and T-Mobile to express concern about “what appear to be sharply rising rates your companies have charged to wireless phone customers for text messaging."
Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.
Kohl, noting the four companies served more than 90 percent of U.S. mobile phone users, said the cost of sending or receiving a text message had doubled since 2005 to 20 cents on all four carriers.
“What is particularly alarming about this industrywide rate increase is that it does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," said Kohl.
