Received my cell phone email bill the other day.  I never go over my voice/text limits and I have an unlimited data plan – so unless I’m traveling, my cell phone charges tend to be very consistent.  I couldn’t help but notice, though, that this bill was $10 higher than usual.  While I’m no fan of AT&T’s network quality (more on that here), I’ve found them to be pretty on top of things, billing-wise – so I was a little surprised.

Off to their website I went, looking for whatever annoying new fee, tax, or disputed charge that was surely there waiting for me – with that familiar old feeling of cell-phone-company-fear-and-loathing already coming on, I logged on to my account….

And there it was – the $10 text donation I had sent to Haiti a month ago and completely forgotten about.  My bad.  I apologize, AT&T – not for calling you out on your sub-standard New York City network quality to whoever will listen (or read), but for assuming you were after another $10 of my money.

That I could have completely forgotten about the donation was a measure of just how painless and spontaneous the process was – so I got to thinking about that, and about whether text messaging has any potential as the payment (and micro-payment) method of the future…

From a service provider’s perspective, a ‘pay-by-text’ feature would have to be an attractive prospect – it’s just about the only next-generation smartphone revenue source one can think of that (unlike video, for example) doesn’t come with a huge commensurate bandwidth hit.  And to the extent a cell phone subscription finances the cost of our (locked) smartphones, it’s already really just a line of credit, isn’t it?

In short, almost all the technical and business plumbing is in place already – if I was a cell phone company, I’d be looking into it.

The potential use cases for ‘pay-by-text’ are too numerous to mention -  supermarkets, restaurants, any retail situation, really.  Imagine how quickly us moviegoers (espeically us NYC moviegoers) could get through crowded theater lobbies if we didn’t have to queue for a cashiers or credit card kiosks anymore – it’s an intriguing possibility (although admittedly, ticketing would have to be worked out).

Of course, there are other uses for text messaging as well – although I’ve never voted for American Idol, I have been to several events now during which we in the audience voted for the most compelling startup business model or posted panel questions by texting, with the real-time results appearing on a live website projected above the stage.

The donations for the Haitian earthquake weren’t quite that real-time, though – your donation wasn’t actually forwarded anywhere until it showed up on your next cell phone bill and you paid it (you didn’t think your phone company was that altruistic, did you?).  While the resulting lag time could be as much as 90 days, at least the phone companies reported the donated dollar amounts to the Red Cross and other organizations immediately, though, so they could start spending accordingly.

Which brings me to another thought – since the cell phone appeal was so successful the first time around, maybe it’s time for another visit from Mr. Clooney and his noble celebrity friends to remind us all that Haiti is still out there, and could still use our help….

I’ve just donated another $10 – maybe over the next few months I can get used to a new cell phone bill amount.