Comments on: Free to End User (FTEU)

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:26:02 +0000

At current rates - FTEU via Cingular/ATT is around 16c. FTEU via Verizon is around 9c.

For a Marketer - Add to the above setup charges, short code charges, other charges. This would roughly put FTEU pricing close to 18-20cents per message + margin.

Compare this to a VoIP call where per minute rates are a little less than $1 per min.

A 160 character (max size of SMS) sent as a voice message would be around 15-20s (approx. 20c). An email would be much cheaper than both the above options.
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That said I’d like to find out who is doing FTEU today in US? or is it still an untested but interesting development that we continue to watch.

By: COO

COO — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:55:40 +0000

Curious why you think it’s more cost prohibitive than say, a bulk postage mailing of notices? Text messaging costs keep going down while postage keeps going up so I guess I disagree that a FTEU program would be that expensive.

I agree with you though that the U.S. carriers should look to Asia and Europe in terms of how to properly handle SMS with its subscribers. However, right now the carriers see text messaging as too lucrative for them to essentially give away. Perhaps this will change in the future but FTEU is the only real alternative for marketers in the near term.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:06:41 +0000

FTEU is a good development. However, as a marketer, picking up the FTEU costs and bundling that into the overall direct marketing and or consumer marketing campaign (emergency messaging, past due notices, etc.) makes it cost prohibitive.

SMS marketing which is free to the end user (i.e., costs picked up by the marketer) is in fact costlier than direct mail and a plain vanilla phone call.

Adopting SMS marketing remains a distant product development in our plans as a marketer. US mobile carriers should take cue from Asian and European counterparts to make incoming SMS free to the consumer (end user)