The Verizon Wireless 3-cents backlash - Questions remain

So now that pretty much everyone in the Mobile industry has heard that Verizon Wireless (VZW) has told its U.S. messaging Aggregators that starting November 1st 2008, they will be charging them 3-cents for every standard and premium MT (outgoing message) that goes over their network for off-deck programs - let’s take a closer look at the situation:

1. SPRINT has long stated that it would charge 3-cents per MT, but has yet to enforce the policy to date. Will they wait to see what falls out of this VZW news OR follow suit?
2. T-MOBILE has charged for MT messages for some time now, but their charge is definitely less than 3-cents and may feature tiered-pricing depending on volume of messages. Will this change?
3. AT&T to my knowledge has never charged for off-deck messaging program MTs. Will they follow Verizon’s lead OR wait out the maelstrom?

Other questions…

MMS - Most of these aforementioned Carriers haven’t determined what their Standard or Premium messaging rates will be for MMS programs. Not that there are a lot of MMS programs running in the U.S. today, but will this 3-cent rate be tacked on to these forthcoming delivery charges? Hell, those companies trying to get MMS-MO programs off the ground (aka User Generated Content) may have to hold-off even longer now.

FTEU - I have written about this topic previously– the industry is still waiting to see what the economics will be for running these types of programs in the future. VZW states that 3-cents will not apply to FTEU programs, but how will the 3-cents charge influence the per message fees that will be associated with FTEU?

Senate Oversight Committee - Will Senator Herb Kohl and his gang of anti-trust committee members throw this development into the mix of items to investigate? Probably will, especially if other Carriers follow suit.

SMTP SMS - will companies start to seriously look at sending SMS via SMTP to consumers as viable option? I would think that the Carriers will anticipate this move and enhance their filters to watch for it and potentially block it. An argument can also be made that the SMTP option will make things worse for wireless subscribers due to SPAM and lack of MMA/Carrier compliance regulation.

Direct to Carriers - will this force large enterprises like Google, Yahoo, Visa, etc,etc that are sending millions of messages on a monthly basis to negotiate preferred rates with the Carriers or Aggregators?

PREDICTION

With the industry backlash that is swirling on the internet now, I am predicting that VZW will pull back on enforcing this policy until further notice. They will need some time to listen to ideas/pleas from other ecosystem players before moving forward. Heaven forbid they do go forward with this and they start losing subscribers to other Carriers because their subs complain of not being able to use ChaCha or vote for their favorite dancing star because the program provider can’t afford to support VZW.

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