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T-Mobile has just announced that as of August 29 the rates for text and picture messages will be going up. With a nice increase, the per message rate will now be the same as most other major carriers as it is going from 15 cents up to 20 cents.

These new message rate will apply only to those customers without a messaging plan, however it may also be a reason for those to escape any contract without paying an early termination fee. Of course that may require a little negotiating on your part and we expect the success level on that to vary depending on how convincing you are and also how nice or friendly feeling the service rep is.

With the way messaging rates seem to be increasing, it seems like it would be smart, even for the casual user, to subscribe to a messaging plan and ditch those per message rates.

Via [jkOnTheRun]

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Sprint’s current lack of support for MMS or PictureMail in their network might be ending soon, as Chief Marketing Officer John Garcia reveals plans that they are working on something with Microsoft for Windows Mobile devices. In a response to a customer’s query, John said:

“We’re working with Microsoft to build a PictureMail application that will work on their Windows product to give you a similar experience as our other products. As some of you may be aware, currently, you can actually do this on a Windows product, but you have to do it through e-mail or Bluetooth. We realize this is cumbersome. We’re working to enhance this for you soon.“

So it seems that Sprint has been listening to all the requests of customers who wanted support for MMS after all. The only problem is we still don’t know how long they will take to roll this feature out officially. And they better hope that MMS is still alive when they finally come around with something like it.

Via [WM Experts]

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Coming just one year after the previous message rate increase, AT&T has announced another increase that will take effect as of March 30, 2008. Customers who are not on a message plan and just pay-per-message will see an increase of $.05 per message, which will bring the SMS price up to $.20 and the MMS price up to $.30. If you are currently on a messaging plan your pricing will not be affected. For those not on a plan it seems like it may be a good time to consider moving over.

Via [PhoneNews]

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Verizon Wireless has announced that it will raise the price of text messages by 5 cents starting March 2nd. The hike will result in customers paying 20 cents per message. Sprint Nextel became the first U.S. carrier to charge 20 cents per message when it raised its rates in October of 2007. Text messaging currently accounts for about 45% of all wireless data revenue.

Read[CNN Money]

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