It seems that carriers are cracking down on content providers who aren’t following the Mobile Marketing Association’s guidelines when it comes to premium messages and content. According to RCR Wireless, Sprint was the first carrier to begin fining non-compliant content providers and supposedly other carriers are following suit:

Sprint Nextel Corp. earlier this year became the first U.S. carrier to formally tie revenue shares to business practices, warning that partners who repeatedly violate Mobile Marketing Association guidelines—by incurring high refund rates, for instance, or not reporting billing errors to the carrier—can forfeit every dime and lose their short codes.

“Non-compliant short code campaigns will receive penalties up to and including program termination from Sprint Nextel Boost networks,” the carrier said in a confidential five-page memo. “Conversely, revenue-share incentives may be applied for programs performing will on policy compliance.”

Other U.S. carriers are quietly following in Sprint Nextel’s footsteps, according to Jay Emmett, general manager of the Amdocs subsidiary OpenMarket, which distributed Sprint Nextel’s memo and handles billing issues for the carrier. (rest of article here.)

Verizon Wireless just announced that it will acquire Alltel Communications. For a mere $28.1 billion ($5.9 billion plus $22.2 billion to pay off Alltel’s debt), this deal will make Verizon the nation’s largest carrier with 80 million customers. (more…)