Facebook Is Going After Ma Bell (T, VZ, S)

Facebook announced yesterday that it would be acquiring Beluga, which is a group text messaging service. This is a warning shot to AT&T T and Verizon VZ.

Telecom companies say that downloading data to your phone is cheap, unless its a text message, going from a few pennies per megabyte of data to a whopping $1000 or so per megabyte.

The Beluga app allows you to send texts to groups of people, and the best part is it's free.

Bernstein & Co. analyst Craig Moffett analyzed the deal in an email. "Facebook is, at its core, a communications company. The move to acquire Beluga makes this explicit. Beluga puts Facebook squarely into competition with [wireless] carriers for the first time."

The telecom companies have had pricing power when it comes to texting, but it looks like that be going away with the Beluga purchase. In 2006 Sprint S raised the price per text message from 10 to 15 cents, and the other carriers followed suit. Sprint then hiked it to 20 cents, and the others followed. "These lockstep price increases occurred despite the fact that the cost to the phone companies to carry text messages is minimal – estimated to be less than a penny per message – and has not increased," complained Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) in 2009.

Last month, Americans sent 173 billion texts, up from 7 billion a month just 5 short years ago.

Be aware telco's. The warning shot has been fired.