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Industry Minister Jim Prentice has summoned representatives from Bell Mobility and TELUS to Ottawa to explain what he calls their "poorly thought out decision" to charge customers for incoming text messages.

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Prentice has sent letters to the CEOs of Bell and Telus asking to meet before Aug. 8 to hear an explanation of the pricing structure, according to a statement on Industry Canada's Web site.

"I believe this was a poorly thought out decision," Prentice says.

The decision has also "raised serious consumer concerns, particularly with regard to charges for unsolicited, unwanted, spam text messages."

The two Canadian wireless telecom providers revealed to customers, in June invoices, that they will be charged 15 cents for every text message they receive – a service that had previously been free.

Traveling texters will also pay more when they send a message from out of the country. The new charges take effect in August.

The decision sparked immediate and widespread protest.

The NDP launched an online petition to "Stop the text message cash-grab" that garnered more than 5,000 signatures in its first 16 hours. A companion Facebook group had more than 3,000 members at time of press.

"People are upset because it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet at the end of every month," says Jack Layton, the NDP leader. He said companies are gouging consumers in a variety of ways.

Layton is calling for government action to stop the rising cost of Canadian cell phone bills. Consumers, he noted, don't have control over incoming text messages, so  charging them for these is unfair.

Bell is happy to meet with the minister, though nothing is arranged yet, says Pierre Leclerc, director of media relations for Bell in an e-mail to ITBusiness.ca.

Bell's price hikes take effect Aug. 8 and Telus puts its fees in place Aug. 24. Consumers will also pay 25 cents for each message sent to another country. Roaming customers will have to fork out 60 cents a message sent from outside of Canada starting on Aug. 17 at Bell.

A Bell document posted on Web site mobile syrup shows the new prices for text messaging.

Rogers Wireless has not announced any changes for its text message billing. Bell and Telus customers with a text message bundle are also unaffected.

Some of these changes – particularly the charges for incoming messages – are tantamount to a betrayal of public trust, Layton suggested.

"The airwaves…don't belong to the private companies involved, they've given the basic privilege to use the air waves by the public," the NDP leader notes. "There should be some basic reciprocity here when it comes to being fair to consumers."

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