It pretty much had to happen, but Upoc will be charging 2¢ for every SMS you receive from them starting next week. I couldn’t find anything about it on their site but I got an SMS from them that said so.
Upoc was a pretty cool service that I don’t think has reached its tipping point; basically it was a way to set up mailing lists for cell phones. You could send and receive text messages to groups of people to provide time-sensitive information. Sort of like a smart mob in a can. I wrote wrote more on Upoc earlier, including how I used it to flash mob online games.
You know, on second thought it wasn’t inevitable. Upoc generated a lot of SMS traffic, which mobile phone providers charge for. If the mobile phone providers were smart, they would subsidize Upoc for getting more people using SMS. If the mobile phone providers were smart.
Since they aren’t I went in and turned off all my message receipt options, although I couldn’t figure out how to delete my account. I suggest you do the same to avoid racking up unwanted bills.
[Update: According to a comment on this entry, it’s only AT&T Wireless customers who are affected. I wonder how the Cingular buyout will affect this….]
2 responses to “Upoc to start charging”
Please note that this new charge will apply ONLY to AT&T Wireless users. This is due to the fact that AT&T is the only carrier that doesn’t currently charge at all for received SMS; Upoc had no choice in order to have a business with AT&T users.
On other carriers that charge for SMS already, this will not happen. Users on other carriers will have no additional charges for Upoc usage.
Thanks.
Upoc
Do you mean AT&T and Cingulair?