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.
What about those people with hearing disabilities who able to communicate through SMS with others are the ones to be affected by price hike. I'm too hearing impaired and still use SMS text message with my friend as I can't always hear on mobile phone very well. I use Vodafone but others are using other companies are the most affected ones because of hearing difficulties(hearing impaired)!