A new survey released this week by the NPD Group, a Port Washington, NY-based market research firm, found that while most consumers are satisfied with their camera phone purchases, only 1 in 5 have used it to send photos to friends and family. The big reason for this? Sixty percent of survey respondents didn't know what the price for sending a picture message was, and so didn't send the photo. Instead, most consumers simply take pictures and leave them on their phones for viewing. We would venture to guess that another reason that consumers aren't sending their camera phone photos to loved ones is because they know all too well how much it costs to send photos ? a lot! Here then are the rates that the five largest wireless carriers charge to send photos from their phones:
- Alltel ? 25¢ per incoming or outgoing picture message. Text, video, and text-messaging packages available for $5.99 to $19.99 per month. Airtime charges apply.
- Cingular ? 25¢ per picture message. Multimedia packages, which include bundles of text and multimedia messages, are priced from $2.99 to $19.99 per month. Airtime charges do not apply.
- Sprint-Nextel ? Photo sharing costs 1¢ per kilobyte to send (typical photos are 50 kilobytes). Multimedia packages under the Sprint PCS Vision brand are available for $5 to $20 per month. Nextel subscribers can send photos for 25¢ per image. Nextel Data Packs are available for $10.00 to $20.00 per month.
- T-Mobile ? 25¢ per message sent. Messaging Value Bundles available for $4.99 to $14.99 per month.
- Verizon Wireless ? Multimedia packages available for $10.00 to $20.00 per month.