As World Shifts From Talk To Text and Beyond, Cellular Companies Adjust Charges
By Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- We're doing less talking and more texting on our cell phones. But there are signs that's changing, too.
And it could mean bigger cellular bills.
The texting craze started in Europe before it spread here. Now, market research data indicate that texting is waning overseas.
"People are still sending messages, but they're sending them through a different means than SMS," such as Apple's iMessage, Blackberry Messenger, and free texting apps, according to Sascha Segan, lead analyst for mobile at PCMag.com. "In the future, we probably are going to see a similar decline here."
It might take a couple years, he says, since there are plenty of feature phones (or "dumb phones") still out there, and free cross-platform messaging is a bit trickier.
But as people realize they don't need that "unlimited texting" bundle anymore and dump it to save cash, Segan says cell phone companies are going to make up the loss, somehow.
"Wireless providers have leaned on their texting revenue for a long time," he tells KYW Newsradio. "I think we're going to see data rates, and rates on data plans, going up."
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