I think the real problem here is all the regulatory and financial barriers to competing in the telecomm arena. The free market has a hard time sorting itself out when there are so few players.
I don't have a solution to propose, but this is my observation.
In France you have 3 main players (and some little ones using their networks, but that doesn't really count). They were already condemned for some "secret" agreements on prices (http://www.cellular-news.com/story/15060.php).
A fourth operator is in process of entering the market, but it has had a lot of difficulties already. The 3 main actors really did all they could to slow the process down and even try to have the government refuse the license to the new one.
Their main reason? The new "challenger" is Free.fr. These are the same ones who pulled the internet market in France.
The ones who came and proposed a free dialup access (minus communication costs), when all other actors were still on "3 hours + comm costs" kind of deals.
The ones who pushed the ADSL market to lower prices for more service, and introduced the concept of "triple play" (you get a special router from the ISP, and you get free TV and phone calls added to the regular internet) ( http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebox , the English page is lacking, though ).
They forced the other actors (roughly the same ones as the mobile telecom) to come up with the same offers for about the same prices.
So that's why they did everything they could to prevent Free from entering the mobile market. By fear of the same kind of thing happening.
Free.fr managed to get their license though, and are in the process of establishing their antenna network. So we will see what will be, when they will really start, and announce their mobile deals.
However, there is a difference between bulk, wholesale costs and individual retail costs, and prices. SMS is hardly the one and only example of high markup goods in history. Indeed, there are a plethora of entire industries in the same boat. Consider toys, many toys cost a few percent of their in-store retail prices, but again those costs are in bulk at wholesale. The same applies to batteries. And everyone knows about the huge markups in furniture and mattresses. The best advice is to find alternatives or shop around. If you just give in and accept the price that means you've declared you value the good you receive higher than the price you're paying for it (and in many cases SMS's are worth as much as people are paying).
Adam smith said that something is worth whatever a person at a particular time is willing to pay for it, there is no consistent, inherrent value in any given trade.
SMS is popular because it is ubiquitous, the mobile phone networks have priced it at a point where the vast majority of users are happy to pay for it. There is no law against high profit margins, nor should there be in my opinion. You could argue there is a competition/monopoly/cartel issue here, but that wasn't too apparent in the article.
And as others have said SMS will eventually go away due to the availability of data plans. I wish all my friends had data plans and were on twitter, I would never need to send an SMS again, until then I can afford it, especially since I don't send very many.
Well, in most of the normal goods you listed, someone's free to sell good, cheap furniture or toys. Target's in business, as are smaller businesses. Telecom's a natural monopoly, which is prone to distortions -- in a normal market, you'd think competition would drive the price of texts down to free, right? It's finally happening but it took a long time. Essentially now it's just a hidden cost in the price, add in $15 to what's advertised for the unlimited texts.
I don't have a solution to propose, but this is my observation.