Free US texting will cause spam; kill everything; blow up world etc

CBS carries this report of a rather direct politician in the States arguing that free texting for all American consumers would be a catastrophic move.

Allowing consumers to send text messages at no cost could lead to crashed mobile phone networks and a flood of unwanted promotional text messages, a lawmaker said on Monday.

Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Information and Communications Technology, said removing the charges for SMS (short messaging service) would only swamp networks with junk messages that could eventually lead to recurring system crashes.

He warned that once texting is free the subscribers will “surely get unwelcome messages every minute, even during our sleep.”

Obviously the networks need to keep the lights on. I think the move to unlimited texting packages is perfectly fine. No cost? Well, … I wonder. I don’t think tha’ts the way to go.