Optus will pocket an extra three cents per SMS message from February 1 when its customers, who send on average 10 million SMS messages a week, will be hit by a price hike from 22 cents to 25 cents.

The country's second largest mobile carrier puts the increase down to -tougher economic times" as well as a means of recuperating costs of network enhancement and improved SMS services over the last year.

Optus declined to comment on the fact that youngsters will be hardest hit by increased charges, but said that on average its users send on 39 SMS messages monthly and will therefore be impacted by about AU$1.20 a month.

"We understand price increases at any time are of concern for customers," an Optus spokesperson told ZDNet Australia. However, -it's still a very cost effective way of communicating," she said. -Twenty-five cents is still a very competitive rate for people using their mobile. There's not much you can get for 25 cents today."

Optus said it could not guarantee that fees would not be fattened up further this year, but said it's looking at launching a number of special SMS offers in the near future, including special prices for particular days and a special value discount offer for heavy SMS users.

Industry analyst Paul Budde is sceptical of the discounted deals, however, saying they wouldn't make much difference and describes the announcement as a -softener" to its blow on the market.

"It's another way to confuse the market," Budde said. -Who's going to remind you of these 'special deals'?"

The other sad story, according to Budde, is that the mobile carriers -enticed" the youth market into the world of SMS -and now they're [carriers] going to milk them out".

-It's not big businesses they're attacking here," he added.

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