Texting Teens Generating OMG Phone Bills

theodp writes "Last month, Washington high school junior Sofia Rubenstein used 6,807 text messages, which, at a rate of 15 cents apiece for most of them, pushed her family's Verizon Wireless bill over $1,100. She and other teens are finding themselves in hot water after their families get blindsided with huge phone bills thanks to hefty a la carte text messaging charges." Use of SMS in the US doubled from 2005 to 2006.

Two words:

[mrjb (547783)]

Prepaid phone.

Re:Two words:

[TheRealFixer (552803)]

I've got 3 words:

No More Phone.

Re:Two words:

[chris_eineke (634570)]

That'll cost her family another 30c.

Re:Two words:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Stop being a pussy: Beat your kid. [thebestpag...iverse.net]

Re:Two words:

[creimer (824291)]

You can do that. Then your kid will yell child abuse to the local Children Protective Services and have you arrested. A talk show host was talking last night about how today's politically correct society won't allow parents to discipline their own children. A spanking is physical abuse. Going to bed without dinner is starvation. Kicking the kid out of the car to have him walk home is abandonment. Won't be long before denying the kid the right to text message is considered a form of abuse.

Re:Two words:

[operagost (62405)]

          <--- Joke

     O
    /|\   <--- You
    / \

Re:Two words:

[creimer (824291)]

But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil? Then it becomes a Catch-22: if you do something, you go to jail; if you do nothing, you go to jail. My Dad had that argument with a judge when I refused to go to school and the judge couldn't tell him what the solution was. Society has no answers for the children who are not perfect little angels. As a parent, you're screwed either way.

Re:Two words:

[mobby_6kl (668092)]

> But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil?

I heard somewhere that Dr. Evil is looking for children to adopt, he's apparently not quite satisfied with "one calorie" Scott.

Re:Two words:

[Jeppe Salvesen (101622)]

Yes, there is an answer: Ritalin.

But seriously, most of the time bad behavior is the result of misunderstood parenting.

Some people give the kid no boundaries and not enough guidance, which is a disaster.
Some people give their kids too many boundaries and too much guidance, which also is a disaster.

(And quite a few parents get it right)

The kid in scenario 1 will feel like their parents don't love it and don't care for its wellbeing.
The kid in scenario 2 will either rebel, or become a follower unable to make its own decisions.

Balanced does it. The real world is an ambiguous place, and your job is to prepare your kid for the real world.

Re:Two words:

[by Anonymous Coward]

I work with youth. Ritalin is a bad start for the answer. Less then 3% of the "ADD" youth I worked with need Ritalin. However, the rest of your post is right on. Children need boundaries. They need consequences for breaking the boundaries. They need to test hte boundaries and see the consequences of breaking the rules. And please, remember that guidance is guidance, not direction. Directions are great for setting the table (yes, our 2 year old sets the table) and other things that should be done the same way each time, but we don't have a whole lot of rules. We do have a bit of guidance, but not too much for her to remember, and we make sure she learns it before applying boundaries. Children are people, and they learn. "Don't stand on the chair" is a rule that will be broken. "If you fall of the chair, you're going to hurt" is something they can do once and decided to get with the program and not stand on the chair.

You're about the only person here who's not a real retard.

Re:Two words:

[BakaHoushi (786009)]

When I was still a little kid, my brother went through what we call his "rage" period. He'd get so insanely jealous and angry over the smallest things, he'd get into a fury and break things, smash down my door, and even though I was a year older, he could easily beat me to a pulp. I was so afraid he was going to kill me.

Years later it turns out he has a number of mental conditions and it's taken years of therapy, but now he's a semi-normal boy. ...Okay, so I still say he's an idiot with problems out the wazoo, but that's a sibling thing. But what could my parents have done? They took him to therapy, they took him to the hospital, they punished him by taking away possessions, what else could they do? Hitting him would certainly result in reports of abuse. It really can be that some kids are just fucked up in the head.

What I'm about to say goes against just about everything modern society says to us, but I believe it's the truth:
PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT. WHAT WORKS FOR ONE WILL NOT WORK FOR ANOTHER.
When I was a child, I was rather... obedient. If my mother said "do this" or "don't do this," I did or didn't do it, respectively (I'm sure if she said "kill a man," I might have had some objections, but thankfully, such requests were rare). I didn't really need much discipline. And when I did, taking away my games or a time out always seemed to make me feel guilty, and I apologized, etc. All in all, physical violence was not needed.

My brother, though, as I've explained, was an altogether different story. Can it be that even though we are siblings, we are quite different, and thus require different methods to develop properly? *LE GASP!*

I theorize (though I am not a psychiatrist) that some kids can learn discipline through a time out. Some may require a little yelling or a slap on the wrist. Some kids might need a good boot or a belt to their backsides. And some kids... well, some kids are just rotten, and no sweet talking or belt slapping is going to change that.

Is this view that bizarre? Whatever happened to "Some people are just naturally selfish jerks?"

Re:Two words:

[swillden (191260)]

Whatever happened to "Some people are just naturally selfish jerks?"

Everyone who said it was sent to timeout.

Re:Two words:

[McDutchie (151611)]

But what if you're a good parent and your child is just plain evil?

Then physically and mentally abusing your kid will only cause him to become more evil.

So don't.

Instead, stop seeing your child as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to his problems.

Re:Two words:

[OrangeTide (124937)]

When your child catches on that nothing they do has consequences, then it's that much harder to raise a well behaved child.

Re:Two words:

[Angostura (703910)]

"Eat your dinner, or go to be without, your choice" is not physically threatening.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus (668722)]

Yeah. We wouldn't want to give them the idea that when they reach adulthood, bad behavior will result in physical threatening.

Re:Two words:

[alisson (1040324)]

Excuse me while I doubt you've ever had children.

Why is it that spanking, bed without dinner, or walking home no longer acceptable forms of punishment? Asking your child to try harder to make 'positive choices' isn't going to stop any disciplinary problems.

Re:Two words:

[Anonymous Brave Guy (457657)]

Bollocks. I'm sorry, but you really are just talking politically correct crap.

For a start, there's no such thing as a perfect parent or a perfectly behaved child, no matter how good your intentions. If you really have children and you really believe they're little angels, have you ever had an honest discussion with their school teachers to make sure they're not just hiding their poor behaviour from you and indulging in it elsewhere? A lot of parents don't, and have absolutely no idea what they're missing. (And yes, I have worked in a school, and seen this phenomenon a surprising number of times.)

More philosophically, which is really more cruel to a child, a quick smack when they do something wrong so they understand that their behaviour isn't acceptable, or the emotional trauma of, say, being denied part of their weekly spending money allowance, which will punish them for several days?

Pain is nature's teacher, and using pain to discipline children is entirely natural. Arguments like yours, which equalise all forms of physical discipline, are painting a coloured world in black and white. In fact, I no longer support certain child protection charities precisely because they can't tell the difference between a parent with a temper who regularly beats their child (a genuine and serious problem) and a loving parent who uses occasional physical chastisement to teach their child what is and isn't acceptable behaviour.

Re:Two words:

[miskatonic alumnus (668722)]

As soon as you resort to smacking, spanking, or hitting in any way, you've signaled your failure as a parent.

According to whom Doctor Spock? You? What makes you the expert? Where's the Ten Commandments of parenting given from on high that works in every possible situation? You're incredibly naive.

Re:Two words:

[ArmedGeek (562115)]

I don't know where you are, but in Texas ..

&#167; 9.61. PARENT-CHILD. (a) The use of force, but not
deadly force, against a child younger than 18 years is justified:
(1) if the actor is the child's parent or stepparent or
is acting in loco parentis to the child; and
(2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably
believes the force is necessary to discipline the child or to
safeguard or promote his welfare.
(b) For purposes of this section, "in loco parentis"
includes grandparent and guardian, any person acting by, through,
or under the direction of a court with jurisdiction over the child,
and anyone who has express or implied consent of the parent or
parents.

Three letters: WTF ??!?

[mcrbids (148650)]

But seriously, why is a phone call cheaper than an SMS message? It's all a digital network, so in cost per bit, SMS messages are something like 66 times more expensive than a phone call.

Let's compare: Digital cell phones use about 14.4 Kbps of bandwidth. (which explains their clarity) Figure about 30 seconds of talking to get the equivalent of a text message, with the "Hello, is SO AND SO there? Yeah. Yeah. It's Billie. 'O, o joy ur so kul'. -CHUCKLE- Ok, see you later. By by. ".

That works out to a total of 54,000 bytes, or 108,000 Bytes/minute. I get about 1,000 minutes at $70/month, a la Verizon. Each minute therefore costs $0.07. So the cost per 30 seconds of conversation is something like 3.5 cents, for 56,000 bytes.

An SMS message is, at its longest, 160 Bytes long. Include headers, let's be generous and say it's double that. (it's not) 320 bytes in an SMS message. Here, we're asking for 15 cents for just 360 bytes?!?!?

Voice
54,000/3.5 cents = .00006 cents per byte ($0.000006 / byte)

SMS
360 bytes/15 cents = .04 cents per byte. ($0.0004 / byte)

If you were buying soda, it'd be like buying a 12 oz can of soda for about $20 while a 2 liter bottle costs $1.

Does that seem like good math to you? BTW: I bought into "unlimited text messaging" back when Verizon offered it, and have refused to upgrade plans until I get it. I've got a network monitor, and when something goes wrong I can get tons of messages all at once if I'm not careful.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[CosmeticLobotamy (155360)]

It's cheaper because if you charge 15 cents for a text message, you can sell 40 bajillion minutes for $8 a century, beating your competitor's 40 bajillion for $12.

The cheap minutes sell the plan, the texting makes the money.

Also, they can. This is how it works with a free market with ridiculously high barriers to entry. It's insane, but you'll eat it and you'll like it.

Though legitimately, I assume there is some overhead involved in creating a connection over and over (finding the customer's current cell and whatnot) rather than just maintaining one, but I can't imagine that actually comes close to making up the difference in price per bit.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[arivanov (12034)]

This is verizon which IIRC is not GSM so I do not know what the actual overhead is.

In classic GSM the SMS travels as a part of the paging messages and the amount of bandwidth available to it is actually quite low. So by standard law of supply and demand its price cannot be expected to be very low. Network in classic GSM simply does not have the capacity to handle lots of SMS hence it is not going to become very cheap without resorting to more modern technology.

From some point onwards (forgot which standard level) you can use GPRS for SMS which vastly improves the capacity, but it is not either not enabled or not the default setting in most operators and phones at the moment.

So there is an underlying economical reason for the relatively high price of TXT compared to voice as well as the fact that TXT is charged differently from other data. At least in GSM. No idea about whatever Verizon uses.

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[rylin (688457)]

Each minute therefore costs $0.07.

Is that .07 dollars or .07 cents?

Re:Three letters: WTF ??!?

[tenton (181778)]

Is that .07 dollars or .07 cents?

Verizon: Yes.

Data services on mobile networks

[Anonymous Brave Guy (457657)]

I used to work in the Engineering department of a mobile service provider, so the information here may be somewhat out of date, but the principles are probably still the same today.

In general, mobile communications networks don't use the same channel for everything. For example, you might have several frequencies available, use one as a control channel (registering handsets as they move around; handshaking to set up calls, etc.) and then have several channels used for voice data.

Now, it's not unusual for small data messages, such as SMS, to be carried on the control channel rather than voice channels. That means there is much less capacity available for such messages than for voice, because they have only a single channel, and they are also in competition with all the network registration traffic, etc.

Moreover, the testing overhead for data messages can be higher than voice calls. Certainly for the network I worked on, every call type was made between every possible combination of approved handsets and checked by a real person before new software went live. (Yes, that did take months.)

So in fact, from a technical point of view, it's entirely unfair to compare voice and data transactions. That probably doesn't matter in practice, of course, because prices will no doubt be set by what the market will bear rather than what it costs to provide the service. That usually means voice and basic texting are relatively cheap these days, but things like photo messaging (or whatever the bonus feature du jour is) tend to cost more.

A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[by Anonymous Coward]

Solution: forbid her from texting her bff Jill.

Re:A $1,100 phone bill? TSNF!

[Miseph (979059)]

Am I the only one who thinks that ad should be advocating for parents to completely ban their children from text messages?

I've actually heard of kids in middle and high school who use SMS and IM so much that they legitimately don't know how to spell words like "you", "your/you're", and will use internet abbreviations (lol, idk, etc.) in school papers.

It scares the shit out of me that people think that's funny, and are apparently willing to pay so that their kids can do more of it.

It's not only kids...

[Etherwalk (681268)]

Listen carefully to the grammar and syntax of our newscasters. Our newspapers. Our popular entertainment. Compare it to the same forty or fifty years ago.

Some of them do make an effort. But the breadth of vocabulary, the precision of their diction, and the depth of their thought have--for the most part--declined over the years. Multiply that difference by about a thousand and you'll know what's happened in the New York City Public Schools. (Once upon a time, they were among the best in the world.)

There are some counterexamples... but not many.

Unlimited SMS..

[tgatliff (311583)]

You know Verizon does have unlimited SMS plans for only $15 per month... Just a thought for someone paying a $1100 phone bill... :-)

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[bwalling (195998)]

If 1 = $0.15 and = $15, then why is Verizon billing anyone $1100? The max bill should be $15. If I were selling something at $1 for 1 or $10 for 30, I certainly would charge you $12 for 32 of them instead of $32. If I charged you $32, you'd call me sleazy and you wouldn't tolerate it. Why have we been tolerating this from cell phone companies all this time?

Re:Unlimited SMS..

[loraksus (171574)]

Because they all suck equally and there really isn't an alternative.
And the assholes who run the companies use that to their advantage.

Phone companies are hurting themselves

[Gregory Cox (997625)]

I agree it's unfair. In the end, though, phone companies doing this hurt themselves more than they hurt their customers.

Look at this story. Verizon got a one-off payment of $1100 from one customer, and maybe similar payments for a few more. However, by charging this money, they have alienated these customers, and worse, generated extremely negative publicity for themselves.

Even on technology-loving Slashdot, there have been many responses like these:

• Kids shouldn't be sending so many text messages
• I blame the parents for not controlling kids' use of their phones
• I don't like text messages anyway

The whole story is in effect a big advertisement for cutting down on your use of text messages.

Verizon and other phone companies should switch customers who overspend like this to an unlimited price plan, retrospectively for that month - so that the customer never pays that high bill. They would lose money on this deal, but in return they would gain the gratitude of their customers, who are more likely to stay with them, bringing in a steady flow of income from their unlimited-messaging plans every month.

What's more, these customers on unlimited plans are going to send more messages, encouraging those around them to reply, and increasing the overall use of text messaging. Even if their friends or family are using different providers, the increased volume of text messages will increase dependence on mobile phones, creating a culture in which mobile phone use is accepted, and benefiting the industry as a whole.

Even criminals extorting money via kidnapping or blackmail are careful to consider what their victim is able and willing to pay when deciding on their charges. Being careful not to surprise customers with expensive charges is simply good business.

This is really nothing new..

[Philus (58941)]

..just a different way of doing it. Sounds like kids still needs to be taught about the consequences of their actions.

It's about time texting caught on in the US

[Ogemaniac (841129)]

In many situations, it is both superior to and FAR more polite than yapping. I had my first cell phone when I lived in Japan, and I sent and received about twenty messages a day. Talking on cell phones was banned in many locations including public transportation, and severly frowned upon in most other public locations. It was like heaven.

Then I returned to the US: People yap while driving. Yap on the bus. Yap while in line. Yap yap yap, oblivious to the people around them or how annoying (and dangerous) they are being.

I blame this largely on the cell phone providers. It is obvious that a text message is far cheaper for them than a phone call, as the amount of information to be sent is tiny. Yet here in the states, text is expensive, typically the price of a minute of talk or so. In Japan, a text was 2-3 cents, while a minute of talk nearly ten times that. Text was automatically part of any plan that I saw. Such pricing is sensible, given the large amount of data that needs to be transferred for live calls, and the fact that it has to be immediate.

American wireless companies should drop the price of text down to a fair price (pennies) in order to encourage its use. Not only is this the fair market price, but it would help the adoption of a great complementary technology to direct voice communication.

Old news here

[Opportunist (166417)]

Teens have been raking up text bills that even went past those 1100 bucks. No, I don't understand the text craze. Personally, I prefer talking under normal circumstances. It's actually even cheaper here when you compare the amount of data you can exchange in the one to four minutes you could talk here for the price of one text message.

Kids have always had insane phone bills. That phenomenon didn't hit the US with their flat local call plans, but here it's been a lengthy battle between the kids who prefer the impersonal way of communication because it eliminates the "danger" of "saying the wrong thing" with your body, and their parents who have to foot the bill for it.

Who's disciplining the parents?

[nanojath (265940)]

Janet Boyd, a lobbyist for Dow Chemical, said she and her husband "nearly died" when they got a $70 charge for their 20-year-old daughter's text-messaging. They went to an unlimited plan.

There's so many things wrong with that sentence I don't know where to begin.

Ah the good ol days

[nEoN nOoDlE (27594)]

Remember those huge phone bills from long distance BBS usage back in the day? I never reached over a $1000 a month but I've had a few hundred bucks a month on occasion.

Read the friggin contract people

[rueger (210566)]

First there was this guy [slashdot.org] whining because it took more than one button click to bail out of the credit card subscription to an anti-virus service, now it's parents whining because they didn't anticipate that the cel company provided less minutes than their kid uses.

Is it really too much to ask that people read the contract or EULA, and if they accept it, not complain when they find that they made a mistake?

I'm not even remotely Libertarian, but for God's sake accept some personal responsibility for your actions.

Preemptive strike!

[simpleguy (5686)]

Durex.

Nuff said.

Re:227 texts a day?!

[carabela (688886)]

So hitting F5 on Slashdot regularly is better?

Re:15 cents each?!

[ottothecow (600101)]

they used to be something like 5 to send free to recieve. Then it was 5 to send 5 to recieve, then it was 10 to send 5 to recieve.

Now it is 15c each way. I dont see how they can justify charging that much for a tiny exchange of data. It has risen WAY faster than the rate of inflation on a technology that should become cheaper (look at how minutes have come down) and it is ridiculous. My guess is that the only reason it works for the phone companies to do this is that the first people to start using them heavily are the kids with their parents buying them mobile phones. They dont have to pay per message so they dont think about the ridiculous costs (look at how much data is in a text message and how much a provider charges for data usage and it becomes clear how much of a rip off it is).

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[winmine (934311)]

Perhaps you should take advantage of the new and popular acronyms to save time and make texting easier. Here are some relevant to your interests:

GOML (get off my lawn)
IGAB (I got a bingo!)
DFOL (dentures fell out laughing)

asynchronous, faster, and persistent

[straponego (521991)]

If you have something quick to say, a text message is much faster and more convenient. You want to get rid of email too? Hey, let's get rid of forums like /. Why post something permanently when we could just have a giant chat room? All we have to do is get everybody together at once. In fact: let's all meet in person! It's ever so much more personal that way.

If you have something quick to say, a text message is much faster and more convenient. Texting is also particularly useful for bits of information you might need later.

OTOH, SMS is a really crappy technology. I think it's vastly overpriced even given how inefficient it is, but... wow. And the telcos have little incentive to fix it as long as people are willing to pay insane, outrageous prices per byte.

Re:Why text when you can talk?

[Bogtha (906264)]

Why text when you can talk?

It's an asynchronous conversation. If I want to know if you are coming to the pub later, I don't need to know right now, I don't need to interrupt what you are doing, and I don't particularly want to chat, because that's what we'll be doing at the pub. If I see a programme on television about fat chicks, I might text my mate — who is a bit of a chubby chaser — to take the piss, but I don't necessarily want a response or to talk to him. And from a purely lazy perspective, sending a few words via text message just seems like less hassle than a conversation. I'll typically talk to between six and ten people when deciding what to do at the weekend, it takes much less attention and time to do it with SMS than with voice.

Slashdot translation: voice == TCP, SMS == UDP. Voice and TCP require a set-up, whether that's a three-way handshake or a "Hi how are you doing?". SMS and UDP just communicate the relevant information and let you deal with it in your own time.

Re:Parents and teachers are pussies.

[Planesdragon (210349)]

All the teachers would need to do is smash the phone of any kid caught sending these messages in class.

In most jurisdictions, that's "willful destruction of property" or a similar criminal and civil infraction.

The rule of law does not allow the government to take private property without fair compensation. A teacher is, at best, part of the government. I suspect any teacher that earned their school a $300 replacement fee would pretty quickly loose their standing.

An "F" or detention is much simpler.

Re:6,807 messages?

[Archangel Michael (180766)]

OMG
LOL
I (heart) U
U 2
U See WHF (what's his/her face)
OMG
Ugly
OMG YNK (you're not kidding)

I can easily seeing a totally meaningless conversation with nothing but acronyms and shortcuts and words no bigger than 5 letters, all in the span of a few minutes. Makes me wonder about our next generation. It really does.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[by Anonymous Coward]

that $200 bill almost spelled divorce.

That's a solid relationship you have there.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[StikyPad (445176)]

that $200 bill almost spelled divorce.

That's a solid relationship you have there.

He was being literal. When he ripped the bill into shreds and threw it on the floor, the pieces spelled out D-I-V-O-R-E-C.

Re:Not just kids ... talk to my wife

[Cheapy (809643)]

If you were honestly thinking about divorce over a paltry sum of $200, you really might wanna go over why you married in the first place. :)