News organizations balk at Sprint SMS fees, end text alerts

ESPN, The Weather Channel and MSNBC are among a number of organizations no longer offering breaking news text alerts to Sprint (NYSE:S) subscribers after the operator began demanding that partners who offer SMS alerts pay one half of 1 cent per message. Sprint calls the fee a "cost recovery measure" enabling the carrier to continue supporting the billions of text messages sent each year as part of mobile marketing campaigns, alerts and other programs. Article