I hate to harp about the telcos in this country in back-to-back posts, but this sucks.

It turns out that Bell and Telus customers will be charged for all incoming text messages beginning next month. For a country that’s supposed to be so technologically progressive, this idea is completely ass-backwards.

The CBC article mentions the following example:

“A 14-year-old kid gets 30 Happy Birthday messages and gets saddled with the bill, for example.”

Let’s not forgot all of the promotional/informational text messages that the telcos send their customers. If customers will be forced to pay for incoming text messages, opting out of the telco’s marketing campaigns better be the default option. And imagine if the telcos actually used their infrastructures for something important, perhaps to mass broadcast amber alerts. Who would sleep comfortably at night knowing they’d charge for that? Not that it’s an issue now since most text messages are of the “omg u rawk” or “k” varieties, but still…

So if you are a mobile customer of Bell or Telus, what are your options? You could switch to another service from Rogers, Fido, or Virgin. Koodo‘s out because they’re owned by Telus. Of course, these guys could just as easily implement a cost on incoming text messages. When in doubt, try an Internet petition. Whether it’ll help or not is up in the air, but at least the NPD are trying to nix the plan to charge Canadians for incoming text messages. So sign the petition and then spread the word.