Verizon Getting Into Some Messy Business

November 1 Verizon Wireless will add an extra 3-cent charge for every SMS message sent by outgoing web services (Twitter, ESPN, ChaCha, 3Jam)
If no one jumps ship,Verizon would see a 15% increase in profits
The new charge would cost companies $30,000 for every million SMS messages they send out
The issue here is net neutrality and whether or not Verizon should be required to keep pricing consistent with other carriers to keep them from carrying out preferential biz dev deals with major brands, raising barriers to entry for the small guys.

Should Verizon be able to to do this?

glu

This is exactly the kind of behavior that will cause publishers and consumers to quickly lose faith in the carriers upcoming "open" initiative.

then again, this is exactly the kind of behavior that telcos exhibit on a regular basis with little lasting consequence.

Undisclosed

If Verizon keeps pulling this crap of jacking up the already high prices, everyone is going to switch to different providers. They have taken our bluetooth, GPS, made close firmware, won't activate certain phones without a data plan, might start to charge for a data plan if you have Mobile Web 2.0, and many other things. Us loyal customers have stayed with them but as time goes by we see what type of company Verizon is and how greedy they really are.