Cowles & Thompson Antitrust attorney Jim Chester: curious timing for probe
It's become a toss up for many lately as to which monthly bill is more unpleasant to open...the electricity bill or the cel phone. For those who have embraced text

messaging, costs have doubled since 2005 to a whopping 20 cents per message. 20 cents here, 20 cents there...if you have a teenager, pretty soon you're talking about some real money(insert emoticon here).

The Dallas Business Journal analyzes the issue and efforts by Senate antitrust subcommittee chairman Herb Kohl to get some answers from the four major wireless phone companies. DBJ reporter Jeff Bounds explains in the piece that Kohl finds the hike curious because text messages cost little to transmit because they are small and that the four carriers each raised rates with identical spikes almost simultaneously. Kohl has asked the four carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and Nextel -- to justify their rates by Oct. 6.

Jim Chester, chairman of the international business and trade practice at Dallas' Cowles & Thompson, explains that politicians are obligated to enforce antitrust statutes, but he finds the timing of the probe _ at the height of the political season _ a little curious.