Verizon Wireless is raising the text messaging rate for customers without a monthly texting plan to $0.15 per message sent or received, an increase of $0.05 cents, an Associated Press report said.
The Associated Press report said the increase, slated for March 1, comes soon after identical price hikes by Sprint Nextel and AT&T's Cingular Wireless, which raised the rate for pay-as-you-go texting from $0.10 per message to $0.15.
T-Mobile USA still charges $0.10 per message sent or received for users without a texting plan, the report said.
In raising per-message rates, Verizon, Cingular and Sprint have left prices for their texting subscriptions unchanged, a sign they may be seeking a more reliable revenue stream by getting customers to opt for a monthly fee, the report said.
At Verizon, for example, customers can pay from $10 to $20 a month for unlimited messaging to other Verizon cell phones plus an allowance of 500 to 2,500 messages to recipients outside the company's network the report said.