Isn't the SMS pricing racket pretty much limited to America? Do other countries also charge exorbitant amounts for sending text messages?
EDIT: Which carrier ? Unless you buy SMS pack, the default rate per SMS is rupee 1. Am talking about Airtel and BSNL. I think the article too mentions this. Quoting it: "The wireless companies all told Kohl's antitrust committee that while the price of individual texts was going up, consumers were paying far less per text by buying huge bundles for flat rates."
I'm under the impression that local messaging in India is practically free.
The exception is when they charge extra on holidays. I guess that part is a bit of a racket, though a more benign explanation would be that they're just trying to keep the network traffic to a maintainable level on those days.