Mind Your Business Senator Kohl

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/26695
Congress to cell carriers: Why have SMS rates doubled?

(italicized text are direct copy from the article at the URL listed above)

Why have texting rates doubled?

(Is texting a word?) I don't think so.

Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate’s antitrust panel, poses this question to the big four cell phone networks. So, what gives?

I ask the real question: why is the government asking the cell phone companies about their rates? It's none of their business. Don't we believe in a free market?

The question posed by Senator Herb Kohl should is quite alarming.

"I am concerned with whether this consolidation and increased market power by the major carriers has contributed to this doubling of text-messaging rates over the last three years," wrote Kohl, who gave the carriers a month to justify their higher SMS rates.

So, now the government is demanding justification from a company for raising the price of a service or product?

Frankly, this is altogether wrong!

It's wrong that Senator Kohl has this at the top of his list of concerns.

It's wrong that Senator Kohl believes that it is his responsibility to watch companies

It's wrong that Senator Kohl is wasting his time on the job on a matter like this when he has responsibility to his constituents, and all citizens of are nation who pay his salary, to devote his time to defending their liberties.

I know he probably thinks that he is defending the citizens "right" to low prices.

Of all things, anyway; sending text messages on a cell phone. For one, a cell phone is not a necessary item. People have lived for thousands of years without them. My wife and I are actually getting rid of ours altogether when our contract expires in a few months. It's become a nuisance to be disturbed by something that one pays for. Beyond that, the "texting" service is superfluous. I never have used that feature and I don't understand the reason for it. Like I've told my son, if I want to contact somebody, it's much simpler and efficient to simply speak to them. Otherwise, an email will suffice.

Let the phone companies raise the price of services they provide as high as they want. The consumer will decide when the price is too high, by choosing to not pay for that service. Then the service provider will lower the price until it makes a profit, or deem to not offer the service any longer, if it can't make a profit at the price that consumers are willing to pay for. Do you see how simple, yet beautifully the free market works when allowed to do so.

According to the latest numbers from CTIA (the organization that represents the wireless industry), U.S. texters sent 2.5 billion SMS messages in June—each day, mind you, or 78 billion messages for the month.

If I were a wireless service provider, I would be raising prices too!

So, what do you think: Are the big four carriers trying to gouge us with text messaging? Would you dump your bundled texting plan if individual messages were more affordable?

Like I said, the smart thing to do is to make as much profit as possible. I don't have a bundled "texting" plan, nor do I use the service or find any value in it, so the comparable price of individual message prices would have no bearing.

MIND YOUR BUSINESS SENATOR KOHL! DO YOUR JOB!

research links
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http://www.opensecrets.org/
http://acuratings.org/
http://ontheissues.org