Numbers which gave me a headache
Have you ever wondered how the mobile phone companies make so much money? (Apart from charging us a lot more for the iPhone than people in other jurisdictions are being asked to pay - thanks a lot O2) One of the ways might be by charging us seriously over the odds to send text messages. I came across this article in the splendidly bolshie Consumerist recently. It says that mobile companies in the US mark up the cost of text messages when compared to the rates for data transfer services by over 7,000 per cent. And of course the same thing is happening here.
Once you’ve used up your Vodafone bundle, for instance it costs you 11 cent to sent an SMS message. A text message 160 characters and at 7 bits per character, that’s 1120 bits or 140 bytes.
That means it costs 0.000785714 cent per byte. (Warning - my maths is pretty terrible but I reckon if you multiply 0.00078 by 140 you get 0.11).
Now when it comes to data transfer, Vodafone charges people around €9.99 for 500 MB per month (in fact it’s cheaper for many people now). So 500 MB equals 512,000 KB = 524,288,000 bytes. So when it comes to data transfer it costs 0.000000019c per byte. If you were to just send 140 byte messages on the 9.99 data plan you could send 3,744,914 messages. To send that many SMS messages once you’d used up your bundle would cost €411,940.54. And aren’t all messages be they SMS or MMS or whatever just a collection of ones and zeros?
Now I have to go lie down. My head is sore.
I have an iPhone that I got from the US and cracked myself. It works very well, but I had intended to get a legitimate device when they became available - just so I could get the data plan and other cool stuff (like visual voicemail).
Unfortunately the data plan isn’t great and there is no visual voicemail.
The monthly tariffs for the cheapest plans are approximately the same price (35 stg = 46.5 Euro) here as in the UK. In the UK they get 600 minutes, 500 SMS, unlimited data, visual voicemail, and 7500 wifi hotspots. Over here we are offered 175 minutes, 100 SMS, 1 Gig of data, and no visual voicemail.
Great value.
Comment by Ciaran Lee | February 28, 2008 at 3:18 pmConor I’m sure you’re right but I couldn’t even read that!
Comment by Neill | February 28, 2008 at 3:54 pmYou aren’t really comparing like with like.
Most SMS is sent using SMPP across Circuit Switched networks, through SMSCs.
Data Transfer is via packets, be they over ATM or IP. Data Transfer uses different protocols and different network nodes to get to its destination and often, packets never arrive.
If you don’t want the convenience of SMS and don’t want to pay the premium, then send an email from your mobile!
That way, you are paying data rates. But, an email sent from a web account open on your phone will probably end up costing more than a text when you download all the pages required to navigate through the email typing and sending process.
Comment by laura | February 28, 2008 at 4:54 pmLaura:
“often, packets never arrive” - that’s a little misleading. With TCP lost packets are re-transmitted.
How is phone->SMSC->…->phone any different to phone->SMTP SERVER->…->phone
Comment by Ciaran Lee | February 28, 2008 at 8:57 pmThis is the most blatent example of a rip-off I seen in a long time. As Ciaran says, the same carrier in the UK is offering the iPhone for €69 euros less (16 Gb model) with three times the minutes, 5 times the texts and unlimited data. I really don’t see how there can be any justification for this. I’ve been waiting for the iPhone to become available here but I’m not willing to pay substantially over the odds so I guess I’ll be getting one from the US as well. There must be someone we can complain to about this?
Comment by Paul Smyth | February 29, 2008 at 9:19 amThis may be slightly off-topic.
Comment by TheDecline | March 5, 2008 at 12:19 pmThe iPhone debacle is just praying on all those who are willing to pay, if you pay that much for something when if no doubt you wait maybe even a year it’ll no doubt be cheaper. A bit of patience and being able to avoid the “must have” bullshit will save you alot of money. Its an ipod after all and its been shown that they can be pretty unreliable in the long run, so waiting that bit longer to see what the longevity & quality is like will serve you more in the long run.