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SMS 4x More Expensive Than Data From Hubble

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the and-much-less-space-porn dept.

paradoxSpirit writes "Physorg has a paper comparing the cost of text messaging versus the cost of getting data from Hubble Space Telescope. From the article: 'The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that's 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that's £374.49 [$732.95] per MB — or about 4.4 times more expensive than the 'most pessimistic' estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs." "Hubble is by no means a cheap mission — but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical!""

2 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So is this the time to bring up ... by Luyseyal · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Hahaha! That's awesome. Great comment.
    -l

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  2. Re:Math is HARD, idiocy comes natural by Urkki · · Score: 0, Redundant

    No the SMS messages are not free. The mobile network infrastructure cost billions and billions to build, and yearly maintenance costs are probably in the billions in the USA alone.

    If you ignore these costs, then also the phone calls and the data connections cost nothing... And yet they charge us for that too! Outrageous!