Text messages is a money making machine for cell phone companies. It’s an absolute cash cow. At 160 characters, a single message would be 1280 bits. Therefore, 6553.6 text messages equals one megabyte of data. At 20 cents a message on Verizon (assuming you don’t have a text plan), that would cost $1,497.97…. per megabyte of data. As a simple comparison: If I use data on my “feature phone”, it’s $1.99 per megabyte of data.
Here is the math for those who are interested:
1 character = 8 bits of data
140 characters = 1120 bits
1 megabyte = 8,388,608 bits
8,388,608 bits/1120 bits = 7489.8285 messages
7489.8285 messages * $0.20 = $1,497.97 per megabyte of data
In another example: my wife has 250 text messages a month for $5. Sounds like a great deal, right? umm… not really. That’s 2 cents per message. That doesn’t look too bad really. It’s significantly cheaper than then 20 cents per message fee when you don’t have a texting plan. But, let’s break this down again…
250 messages * 1120 bits= 280,000 bits of data
$5/280,000 bits = $0.000017857 per bit of data
1 megabyte = 8,388,608 bits
8,388,608 bits * $0.000017857 = $149.80 per megabyte of data
Text Message cost prices are from Verizon Wireless as of May 10th, 2010.
All computer unit conversions were made by using the simple conversion tool over at unit-conversion.info
