Keeping Text Messaging Bills In Check

Recent Price Hikes Making It Tougher; CNET Experts Has Tips

(CBS)  Now that T-Mobile has joined Sprint Nextel, AT&T and Verizon in hiking the price of text messages from 15 cents to 20 cents, what can you do to curb costs and combat a rising cell-phone bill?

On The Early Show Tuesday, CNET TV Senior Editor Natali Del Conte suggested either using a blackberry instant messaging service free of charge, or paying to use the Internet on your phone so you can instant message, e-mail or Meebo others for free, instead of texting.

If you and your kids have no problem staying within the allocated amounts of texts in your plans, then perhaps these alternatives aren't for you. But the bottom line is that, with the cost of texts going up, these might be great difference-makers for you.

There've been cases of teens sending upwards of thousands of text messages a year -- some even send a thousand text messages per month -- and, at 20 cents a pop, that can be $200 in text charges.

There's no data on how many people are going over their plans' limits, Del Conte says, but it seems that text messaging keeps getting more and more popular -- and more and more expensive.

POSSIBLE TEXT ALTERNATIVES SUGGESTED BY DEL CONTE

INTERNET-BASED ALTERNATIVES

If you pay the $15-$30 a month to get the Internet on your cell phone, you can avoid those massive text messaging bills by using other means of person-to-person communication. You definitely shouldn't text if you already subscribe to an Internet service on your phone, as there are so many free ways to communicate without worrying about the expense of texting:

1) INSTANT MESSAGING: Most cells have the ability to enable you to instant message, so the same way that you IM people from AOL or Yahoo, you can do it from your cell phone. Just flip open your phone, go to the Web browser, and go to AOL.com, Yahoo.com, etc. It doesn't matter how long you're "online" -- whether you're IM-ing for five minutes, or five hours, it will cost the same if you're on one of these monthly plans

2) MEEBO: If you go to the Internet on your phone and go to Meebo.com, you can register yourself and all the IM-ing platforms you use, and it will sign you into all of them at once. So, if you use AOL and Yahoo to IM people, once you sign into Meebo, it will immediately sign you into both. A lot of people have more than one instant messaging account, so this is very helpful for them.

3) EMAIL: Just e-mail people the short messages you were planning on texting them

BLACKBERRY-BASED ALTERNATIVES

Blackberry messaging is basically IM-ing from Blackberry-to-Blackberry that connects to people through their Blackberry e-mail addresses.

For more from CNET on the increasing cost of text messaging, click here.

Editor's note: CNET and CBSNews.com have the same parent company, CBS Corporation.

[lovesamerica]

I have no cell phone and my texting costs are ZERO!!!!

[cyberus-2009]

Nice lack of research on the part of whoever wrote this.
And lack of oversight by the editors.

I use Sprint and there are alternatives to paying the per message fee.
Have them turn it off if the kid can''t limit themselves .. yes they can turn off all messaging if you ask.
Sprint has a flat fee for unlimited messaging, $20 for all phones on the shared family plan, which in my book makes a frack of a lot more sense then paying $15 a month PER PHONE for internet to use instant messaging.
BTW .. Sprint can also block internet use on a phone by phone basis if you cannot afford it and the kids keep racking up *casual use* charges.

[bobnjersey]

[Now that T-Mobile has joined Sprint Nextel, AT&T and Verizon in hiking the price of text messages from 15 cents to 20 cents, what can you do to curb costs and combat a rising cell-phone bill? ]

stop using it ... which tells them they''ve reached that magic price threshold.

[marc411]

Carrying text messages is extremely cheap for the cellular carrier, so it really bothers me that they tout it as a feature that carries such a premium price. Sending a text message involves less digital information than a single spoken word in a voice conversation. And obviously, despite the fact that they cost 20 cents each beyond whatever is contracted for, the fact $10 dollars monthly will pay for 500 texts (Verizon pricing) means the carriers are also willing to sell them for 2 cents each. The real cost is near zero, and the rise in per-text pricing is just a way to coerce everyone into increasing their monthly bills by $10 per-month per-phone for a nearly 100% profit. UGH!!

[docpeter-2009]

HEY! I have a completely better idea. Instead of texting why not have a conversation and use the phone for its intended purpose.

[dan_shields-2009]

my mother got me the 1500 ''IN'' network text messaging from Verizon and it works pretty well i dont go over and if i do i pay for it, like a responsible teenager that this world seems to be lacking these days

[j0xujahc]

You can also turn off the text and internet features. Teenagers can easily run past any amount. My daughter used to text into the 200 $ a month bill. Now she can call, that''s all.