Slashdot Mirror
Senator Questions Rise In US Texting Prices
vimm writes "Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) has started an inquiry on the rising prices of text messaging (up 100% since 2005) that has occurred almost in sync with the consolidation of 6 major carriers down to 4. In a letter sent to Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile, Kohl said the increase 'does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages.'"
This message just cost me $427 to text.
The only rising cost in text messages is the time (and money) out of the end-user's pocket, to have to read and delete spam messages sent to their mobile phones.
What rising cost? Text messages cost about as much as extra minutes (give or take, depending on the carrier), and yet they take much less bandwidth than voice calls. Much, much, much less bandwidth.
Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) has started an inquiry on the rising prices of text messaging (up 100% since 2005) that has occurred almost in sync with the consolidation of 6 major carriers down to 4.
Well, it could be that the competition was driving prices down to a lower level and then after the two consolidated, this (money losing) price reduction natural re-adjusted back up.
Another reason could just be that it's just as easy to sell plans at 10 cents a txt as it is to sell them at 5 cents a txt. We simply don't realize the cost adds up as consumers.
It could also be that people use text messages about twice as much now as they did in 2005 and the hardware just can't take it, so they adjust the price to reduce usage.
I think we've discussed this absurd price before. I am quite naive about the whole electrical engineering side to this but well versed in the software of it. If it costs nearly nothing for me to talk for a minute, why couldn't they wrap the txt into a digital signal identical to what our vocal signal is wrapped up in and just let the receiving unit decode it as a special text message across the same audio range (like the old phone modems)?
My work here is dung.
Sounds like the Cellular industry hasn't been contributing enough to a certain Senator's campaign.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If so, text "Text" to 8398 for updates! Standard text messaging rates apply!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Another interesting question: my phone service (through Verizon) has free after-hours calling, but I pay the same rate for text messages and other data services regardless of time of day. Surely if the data from my phone call is cheaper to transmit at 10pm, then the data from my SMS message is too?
Herb, we told you the check was in the mail, why can't you be more patient? I have to warn you if you continue on this track future checks may be even slower to arrive. I'm sure you'll start to see things our way very soon.
Sincerely,
AT&T
I guess our senators have nothing more important to discuss.
Kohl said he is particularly concerned that all four of the companies appear to have adopted identical price increases at nearly the same time. "This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace," he wrote.
I wonder if things will get as far as a price-fixing investigations?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Yeah, that sucks. Text messaging should be dirt cheap. Yeah, they're making an enormous profit off it.
But text messaging is voluntary. You can stop any time you want. They're clearly charging what the market will bear.
Sure, it makes them look like scum when they're getting paid huge amounts for not doing very much... but c'mon, Senator Kohl, that's the American Dream! If y'all don't like it, get rid of your cellphones and use email.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Issues that matter to people will always get raised during election time. The price of gas will drop dramatically pretty soon just before the election and there will not be any connection to world events. It happened times before and will happen again. Everyone knows Oil Industry == Republicans and the easiest way for them to gain favor is to relieve people with lower gasoline prices for a short while.
But these tactics aren't limited to the price of gasoline... we will see more issues like the price of texting or all sorts of other nonsense that people can rally behind. It is unfortunately a part of the game and typically, even though people get excited about the apparent intention to reign in some justice and sanity, almost nothing ever really happens... except, perhaps, additional contributions from the accused industry.
The amount of data in a txt, maybe a kb or so with overhead, should be virtually free to transmit compared to voice traffic. This is especially true since the voices are digitized and handled as data.
In other words, they've been a price gouge from the start, and we're surprised when the companies try to push the envelope to get as much out of the gouge as people will put up with?
I've got a bridge to sell you...
I'm pretty much the least informed mobile phone user on the planet. (I bought some Nokia phone with a bundled prepaid card, because my wife made me, and barely use it. I wrote the number on the back of the phone because otherwise I'd have no idea what it is.) And I'm only paying 10c to send texts and 5c to receive! And that's current, because I just looked it up, after looking at the phone to remember what company I'm with. Who is paying 20c?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Actually, they're not charging what the market will bear. They're banking on the idea that the 13-year-old who texts his/her friends 100+ times a day and who's on their parents calling plan will have parents too milquetoast to cut off their text service.
SMS prices are not based on what they cost to deliver they're based on what the market will bear. Downloading an mp3 over SMS would cost over 5 grand.
I'm not sure there's so much collusion as a majority of people willing to pay insane prices for texting, and cell phones in general. I recently found a cell phone bill from about 10 years ago - it was $9.99 per line (times 2) plus tax (I got a local big-employer discount, the regular rate was $14.99 per line). It came with, I think 120 minutes, which is all I ever use anyway. My current Verizon bill is now easily $85/mo for two lines with a basic text package. Sure, there's been inflation, but there's also less competition.
I understand that in countries where the service providers are separated from the equipment providers the competition is fierce. I'm not sure but I'd guess that it's because people can jump from provider to provider on their non-crippled phones.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"Because we can."
My employer pays huge text messaging bills, mostly because they view the 10 cents a text message costs to be a non-starter. Even with the average user sending 100-200 messages, that only tacks on $20 to the average cell phone bill.
And believe me, at my company, each phone is easily a $150/month bill.
When you're billing out engineers at $200/hour, another $20 on the monthly bill is nothing. I'd guess that the average high-volume cell user is typically not watching the nickels and dimes on the statement.
Although that's one of the most overused tags on Slashdot, and it's rarely applicable, this is definitely a case where it should be tagged as that. I don't think I can since I'm not a subscriber, though.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
A: Choose one or more:
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Text messages should be free. The bandwidth required to send a text message should be ridiculously low. I can understand the desire to recoup development costs of the service, but I think this is the cell phone carriers way of tapping in to the elusive younger crowd's wallets to spread their income across a larger spread of services.
Cell phone carriers should provide this as a free service to entice subscribers to switch to them. I predict this will go the way of the ATM fees once one major service provider starts promoting it. I can see the campaign now, likening it to freedom. "Those other evil companies want to suppress your freedom of text! Not at X carrier, let freedom ring!"
If someone calls you, you pay. If someone texts you, you pay. If no one does anything and you don't have a rollover plan, you lose your minutes and, ergo, you pay. We are far removed from land line days where only the initiator of the action paid for the action and if you didn't make LD calls and you had unlimited local calling, your bill was about the same each month.
Why have prices increased so much in the past few years?
Simple... because people will pay that much.
Which is exactly the reason it will continue going up.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
So all the saved money will just go nowhere? It will have no effect?
props 2 u
Excellent! I'm happy to see a senator doing something for the people. Unfortunately, I am not one of his constituents. I'll bet he has kids or grandkids that do lots of SMS messaging, and has noticed the increase in the bills. I wonder when a senator is going to get pissed off at Comcast.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
At least make incoming SMS free. I get so many requests for money transfer SMSes from Nigeria and Togo.
I spent over $50 in text overages last January, so I got the $30 unlimited Family Messaging plan from AT&T. That worked.
In Asia, they have incoming SMS free, why not do it in other areas as well?
slashdot rocks
I for one welcome our Questioning Senator Overlords!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Which way did they go? They're still around and have only increased.
We respectfully take your concerns into consideration, and present you with this money basket. We hope that this free donation to your re-election campaign, brand new BMW, and lakehouse are enjoyed thoroughly by you! Thank you for ceasing your inquiry - err, we mean, thank you for invariably enjoying our gifts!
Love,
The Telcos
In coming needs to be free as well having 1-800 text numbers that are 100% free and the 1-900 based ones should just have there fees not fees + the standard rate.
dude texting is FREE. ... 80 years ago? /.
after a decade of rip-off, sending
a bunch of ascii chars is free.
the mobile phone was invented
gawd i can post free on
I have been paying way too much for way too long. I use like 5 minutes a month and pay about $30/mo. I have been wanting to go to one of those pre-paid phones and get my monthly payment way down. Unfortunately all the pre-paid plans minutes expire way too fast and such so you end up not really saving that much. I believe T-Mobile has a $10 90-day thing though so I have been thinking about that. Any good?
T-Mobile is also one of the very few providers I have found that have a pre-paid Nokia phone. I have tried about every phone out there and it seems only Nokia has the stuff I want:
I have never seen any phone other than Nokia that even has one of those features.
Nonsense. We need to slap a "vice tax" on text messages, like we do on cigarettes and alcohol, to discourage their use. At $20 a text, perhaps the world will finally be free of this insidious evil.
Mod me down to -1, Troll, please.
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
0.10 dollars or cents?
any look at this.
http://www.chopstork.com/blog/2008/07/01/verizon-math-infects-att/
Quite right. And petrol going from $1.10/gallon to $4/gallon is no big deal either, it's only $2.90 worth of difference. There are more pressing issues than gas prices, like healthcare, crime etc.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The actual cost of text messages to carriers is a joke but they charge us like there's some super hard technological feat. Consider: 160 byte maximum, and assume you can send them for a low low price of 5 cents a message. 1,024,000 / 160 = 6400. 6400 * .05 = $320 a megabyte.
What a ripoff. I'm all for paying for services, but the carriers are clearly sticking it to us. I can send a picture message for a quarter (5 times the cost of a text message), and I can guarantee that every image I send is more than 160 * 5 or 800 bytes, and it goes across the same network.
It makes me grumpy.
Government do something to encourage free-market competition among the carriers in order to bring prices down.
Having government artificially limit how much profit texting can generate for the carriers will not do anything to help improve service.
Texting is not a basic human right.
The police: When seconds count, we're there in about eight minutes.
the increase does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages
No shit sherlock.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Or maybe a showy issue that most americans can identify with, will help non-technical americans realize how badly monopolies are robbing them? You know, and I know, that the cost of sending a text message is so incredibly small charging any amount of money beyond voice service is essentially highway robbery. But many people think it's new, and thus must be a huge complicated thing.
Yeah, text messages themselves are stupid secondary problems. But waking people up, and forcing them out of the idiocy of news tv talking heads, and forcing them into the cognitive dissonance caused when they realize businesses are hurting them because capitalism ISN'T working as designed... that helps a lot. Otherwise it sounds like a bunch of pompous academics in suits talkin fancy words and talkin smack about god and the president.
Unfortunately, I'm sure we're all aware this is just a senator trying to make it look like he's rattling a few cages
Actually, afaic, Herb Kohl is one of the few good guys left in Congress. And fwiw, since he's got his own millions of bucks from the Kohl's department store chain, he doesn't need money from anybody. Got his own stash, thank you very much. So while I wouldn't deny that he's a publicity whore (duh! he's a politician!) I would say that it's a safe bet that, oddly enough, he's pushing this in part simply because he's disgusted with the telecom companies.
Now if only HE would run for president.
A man's gotta dream; ya know?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Hey this is fun...I can speculate on a lot of possibilities too *cough* collusion *cough*!
But aside from randomly guesses, there is one thing I know for sure: in a competitive market, costs to the consumer are driven to down to the cost of production. We all know reading slashdot the cost to make a text message is approximately nothing. Ergo, something is seriously wrong with the market here.
Are we suspecting, these guys have formed a trust to keep the prices same and/or rising? No... With 4 players, any one of them can hardly be called a monopoly either.
Then leave them alone and don't engage in price-control, Senator. Better yet, build your own wireless company — if you charge less for the same services without sacrificing other aspects, people will flock to you in droves...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Companies only believe in the free market when it suits them, so they don't deserve it. The only way to keep prices low is to intelligently regulate and keep the corporations small and relatively powerless so they don't have the resources to buy their way into the government's good graces.
Without stiff and proper rules keeping corporate interests separate from government interests, you always end up with corrupted governments relaxing regulations and robbing public resources for private profit, or as they like to call it, privatizing. Notice under the Bush administration that all of the deregulation and plundering of public property has resulted in a highly unstable economy. When you eliminate so many rules that the only thing stopping the resulting mega corporation from ripping people off are the inherent ethics guiding a company, you'll quickly be reminded that the only moral standard they answer to is the bottom line.
Who wish I could disable text messages on my phone. I wish I could activate a feature so when someone sends me a text message I don't see it and they get a response telling them to just call me.
So, you're saying that since there are other problems nobody should tackle this one? This reminds me of the argument that we've all seen that law enforcement should have "better things to worry about" than investigating relatively minor offenses like copyright violations while murderers and rapists are walking free.
If guns kept people safer we'd be allowed to carry them on commercial flights.
I must say, I love the logic of that position! Let me try one:
If bottled water kept people safer we'd be allowed to carry it on commercial flights.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH
But the price they charge customers will depend on what customers are prepared to pay. Network operators charge more, per amount of data moved, for text than they do for voice (a single SMS uses less bandwidth than a second of voice, yet costs about 20x voice on most plans). Since it is waste, they can afford to discount heavily to bulk buyers (who don't mind their SPAM taking a bit longer to get there).
Thus, network operators love text: it converts their waste into something more valuable than their main product. How cool is that!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I mean, shouldn't we be looking at the ridiculous airtime charges? Roaming fees? Unreasonable cellphone plans? Compared to all that, texting just seems minor.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I'd like you to justify the sharply rising costs of the Federal government.
I'm concerned that rising debt, deficit, and the size of government programs reflects decreasing adherence to the laws that grant power from the people to said government. I'm concerned that citizens are paying more than 3.2 trillion Dollars to fund the government this year, up from 1.8 trillion Dollars in 2000.
This increase does not appear to be justified by rising costs of administering a constitutionally authorized government. I am particularly concerned that both of the major political parties appear to have adopted identical spending attitudes at nearly the same time.
This conduct is hardly consistent with the vigorous competition of ideas we hope to see in the 'Laboratory of Democracy'."
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
As things like Android phones emerge, I wonder if there will be ways to hack around stuff like absurd SMS costs? Like:
The idea of getting IP-over-voice despite the carriers' rules strikes me as hilarious, even though it would be obscenely slow for anything bigger than text messages.
will require new phones and/or software upgrades to all existing phones out there
Why not just roll it out in stages like any other protocol update? Build a specification that uses the EV-DO part of the network for SMS and have all new phones receive/send SMS that way by default.
The old system could be left in place indefinitely (AMPS was a dinosaur and still supported up until Feb 2008) and would receive less and less traffic as all those teenagers upgraded their phones. Hell, I doubt it would take that much time. The phone that Mom and Dad bought them three months ago is so YESTERDAY.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Personally, I'd feel safer on a flight if ordinary citizens were allowed to carry. Even if the airlines offered everyone a small, .22 caliber single shot derringer as they got on. Small and low powered so no single person could really do much damage, but several passengers could easily take someone down if they tried anything stupid.
How to make money in capitalism while your market is cornered by a monopoly of sorts:
1) Create startup $1-a-month text-message hosting/delivery company
2) Barely break even for the first month, but generate huge userbase
3) ????
4) Profit!
(???? = Get bought out by telecom, so they can keep their monopoly and continue gouging)
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Actually, he's got all the money he needs. If Herb Kohl wants "a brand new BMW" he can buy one with the weekly interest from his bank account. And that is why he's willing to stand up to them. Now if we could only get him clued enough to not do chowderheaded things like voting for FISA.
Which, let me note, is exactly the kind of thing that we geeks need to pay attention to. Legislators like Kohl who *do* frequently do the right thing should be so overloaded with capable, free advice on technical issues that those advisors could create their own baseball league. Me? I've gone over tech issues with our new mayor, some members of the city council, and several dozen other legislators over the years. Try it, folks. You might be surprised how many will listen if you're calm, specific, informed, explain why they should care, and don't ramble.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
If bottled water kept people safer we'd be allowed to carry it on commercial flights.
You can as long as you buy it after the TSA check.
In all honesty the TSA is a joke. When I got on the first plane to take me to my destination they made me get rid of all my travel sized shampoo, because it wasn't in a plastic bag. I ended up having to buy razors at my destination. I didn't even try to bring them with me for obvious reasons. Then when I got back home and started unpacking I noticed I still had the pack of razors, bottle sized shampoo, and full sized tooth brush still in my bag and not in an approved plastic bag.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
Personally, I'd feel safer on a flight if ordinary citizens were allowed to carry
Yeah but the only problem with "ordinary citizens" is they tend to miss the bad guy and hit grandma over there in the aisle seat ;)
Small and low powered so no single person could really do much damage, but several passengers could easily take someone down if they tried anything stupid.
Hmm, tasers. I could get behind that. Imagine the hilarity of hearing "Don't tase me bro!" in Arabic.
Imagine the hilarity of hearing "Don't tase me bro!" in Arabic.
It's probably on par with reading a bigot in English.
Another reason could just be that it's just as easy to sell plans at 10 cents a txt as it is to sell them at 5 cents a txt. We simply don't realize the cost adds up as consumers
I think it's more a case of s/notice/care/ for most cases...
The fact that it hasn't implies that the cellular market is not free.
Says who? There are four providers of text messages, and several other means of communicating data. Would you believe that for many people, the VERY SAME DEVICE that sends text messages for $0.10 can be used to send a one-minute voice communication for ZERO INCREMENTAL COST to the customer, but the customer chooses to pay the $0.10 anyway?
Not to mention the myriad of other ways people have to share information OTHER than text messages.
The high prices of text messages indicate that there's no competition in that market.
Except that YOU don't get to decide whether the price is high or not. The market does. And the *MARKET* has decided that the price of text messages is reasonable. People are willing to pay $0.10 to send a text message. What it COSTS to provide the message is irrelevant.
Did you know that people sell oil and gold for more than the cost to mine it? Did you know that that soft drink you pay $3.50 for at the movie theater costs the movie theater pennies worth of syrup and cold water?
Did you know that you can get a cell phone plan that lets you talk on your phone from nearly anywhere in the country and to anywhere in the country for *LESS* than it used to cost for a landline and long distance?
Did you know that many drugs sold for $10 or more a pill cost mere pennies to manufacture? All you have to do is invest a few billion in finding one that works.
And while the incremental cost of sending a text message may be $0, all you have to do to send them is invest a few hundred billion in a cell phone network....
At the end of the day, if people are willing to pay $0.10 a minute and $0.10 a message, then that's what people are willing to pay. Which one provides the better margins to the cellular company is irrelevant, as long as people are willing to pay the price charged and the company has enough revenue to stay in business.
paintball
One of the posts above explained how SMS works by sending it over one of the frequencies reserved for the tower talking to the phone. I'm rather curious.. how will SMS work when LTE or WiMax (4G) comes out? It'll end up being data, more than likely, which would give up the carriers' reasoning, wouldn't it?
I'd rather see government do something to encourage free-market competition among the carriers...
So, what would you suggest? We've already *had* three full rounds of anti-monopoly/trust legislation and each time it gets subverted. What do you suggest that:
A.) can get passed (by both houses) (and not get vetoed)
B.) is comprehensible to the average voter
C.) can be defended against the inevitable several hundred million dollar disinformation campaign that the affected corporations will wage against it
D.) provides a clear path of responsibility for an agency that is tasked to enforce it in a transparent and persistent way.
E.) has a clear and consistent metric for penalties and/or requirements for disbandment that are proportional to the problem and enforceable and give judges and/or regulators some degree of leeway for special cases
F.) Won't then be utterly subverted in a decade or so?
Make no mistake. I would love to see something like that. But it's a just a wee bit more complicated than "somebody should, ya know, do something."
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
capitalism ISN'T working as designed
if Capitalism was working as "designed" you wouldn't have enough idle time in the day to post to slashdot to complain about it. Then again you probably wouldn't have the education necessary to contemplate such blasphemy as Capitalism not working, since all education would be tied directly to your trade and not 1 minute would be wasted training children to do anything not immediately job related as the market demanded.
You'd either be passed out from sheer exhaustion, or working furiously away lest your employer get the idea he could get slightly more production at less cost from some desperate member of the surplus population.
text messaging would be the last thing on your mind unless it was to impress your employer to value your contribution to *his* capital more.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
I believe the point the GP is trying to makes is that it's like a plane just crashed into your house and killed your entire family and you're going "Oh dear, now all the good china will be broken."
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
Yes but the substantive content and intrinsic profundity of the messages has increased over the years. Further costs are incurred as a result of the sheer philosophical depth of these messages.
Yeah, text messages themselves are stupid secondary problems. But waking people up, and forcing them out of the idiocy of news tv talking heads, and forcing them into the cognitive dissonance caused when they realize businesses are hurting them because capitalism ISN'T working as designed... that helps a lot. Otherwise it sounds like a bunch of pompous academics in suits talkin fancy words and talkin smack about god and the president.
Capitalism works just fine ... text messaging is too expensive, so I don't use it.
There ... capitalism at it's finest. If someone using text messaging is complaining it's too expensive, then maybe they should look at alternatives or STFU. THAT is what capitalism is all about.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
What does intelligence have to do with it. The texters are kids. They have no sense of value. They'll pay anything, and Verizon, et al. know it.
The true meaning of free in free market is that once the corporations get large enough in size, they are free to do whatever the hell they want.
Every successful economy has a well regulated system with many free market elements, but never a truly free market. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to provide a counter example.
It's called, charge as much as you can without pushing away your customer base. One carrier raises prices a little, then others follow suit, because they can. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. As text messaging demand is increasing, rates keep climbing, even though supply is limitless. It's a total win situation for the telcos. Once upon a time, when incoming text messages were free, and outgoing cost $.10, I didn't mind having the service, and actually kind of liked getting the free alerts that were available. Then SMS spam showed up, and my carrier started charging me $.10 for incoming / $.25 for outgoing. Then $.25 for incoming/outgoing. So, I vetoed with my pocket book and blocked SMS completely. That is, until just about everyone complained they couldn't SMS me, and wondered why I wouldn't reply. So, I finally started paying for a subscription plan, but I feel like a total sucker. As long as it's a service that people depend on, they can charge whatever they want for it and get away with it. The only thing you can do about it is block the service and ignore it's existence, and just try to get people to email you.
If I jack the price of a gallon of water, people will use less water. At a point, farmers will use less water; but up to that point, they will happily use 8 gallons per square foot per day. When I get so far, they'll use 7 gallons, and it'll start bringing me in less net profit beyond there. Jack the price up to that point, duh. Same with text messages.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
With texting continually on the rise, is it possible that less airtime minutes are being used? To keep steady (or steadily rising) profit margins, is it possible they're raising prices to balance things out?
What is really amazing is that people seem to come out in droves to defend the carriers. I wrote an article on the ridiculously high cost of text messages some time ago (which was also featured here on /. as well as several major media outlets - yes, I'm tooting my own horn) and couldn't count the people who came out and said "DUH! They're charging what they are because people are willing to pay it!"
These are the kind of assholes who troll around the web looking for any discussion in which to insert their derogatory "I'm smarter than you - it's so obvious!" attitude while ignoring the issue at hand. No, prices are not justified by the markets willingness to pay them. Do you think it is justified that a friend of mine had to go $400,000 in debt because he got brain cancer while he didn't have insurance? His family was willing to pay it, so it must be a great deal, right? Do you think that higher and higher gas prices are justified even while the price of oil drops and oil companies post record profits quarter after quarter?
No, of course those things aren't justified. Just like it wouldn't be justified if all the food manufacturers suddenly decided to charge 10x more for food. It's anti competitive and it's illegal for a very good reason. Price fixing ruins the free market and ensures that consumers get the crappiest possible product for the greatest price. It ruins innovation and takes a huge dump on everyone in the market. Several historical examples show this, but I won't get into that here. Two seconds of critical thinking will get you to the same conclusion.
Text messaging is a 100 billion dollar industry in the U.S. That's bigger than all the movies, all the music, and all the video games in the entire world put together. The current cost of a single 140 byte text message is 40 cents (which is obfuscated by the fact that the sender AND the receiver are both paying 20 cents each). I can get a letter hand delivered to any doorstep in the U.S. for about the same price. The cost of a text message to the carrier is virtually ZERO. Yet somehow, they are saying that 40 cents is a fair price. I want to know why, and I'm glad someone in congress is doing something about it.
My article on the subject is here, btw, for anyone interested or who hasn't already seen it: http://gthing.net/the-true-price-of-sms-messages
or else!
I should have made clear, contingent on no one exercising monopoly pricing power. But that's a lot different than just 'the prices went up'. Consolidation often results when there are too many companies in a business and the prices are too low for the businesses to sustain themselves.
paintball
Well, perhaps Senator Kohl doesn't understand that newly evolving technology and expanding markets (and yes, wireless communication still (barely) falls in this category, imo) often produce highly unstable prices for goods and services. Unless he can find a smoking gun indicating collusion from his "inquiry" (a proposition that nearly demands a goodluckwiththat tag), the providers can respond that market forces are at work (i.e. rising demand, which has little to do with the supplier's costs). Over here in Germany, the average customer happily bends over and pays 9-19 cents per text, and I'm guessing the German big-dog T-Mobile wouldn't mind introducing its business model to the American consumer base. The Senator should find more productive things to do than rattle sabres to grab headlines... after all, only presidential candidate senators are allowed to do that full time instead of work.
Herb Kohl keeps getting reelected. He is (or at least appears to be -- which is a lot more important) for the little guy.
The constitution only mentions firearms. You'll need another amendment if you want to include water....
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Let me get this straight. You see a guy passing a gun through security, getting on your flight, and you'd feel safer? How do you know he's not a criminal or a potential hijacker? I can't believe the responses this sig is getting, I can't believe anyone in their right mind would actually advocate removing the ban on carry weapons onto planes. No wonder the country's in a mess.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
AC sucketh at logic. Every day thousands die in Africa from malnutrition, so should solving the problem of poverty in the US be abandoned?
The cost of text messaging is vastly disproportionate to the actual data transfer that takes place. VASTLY. If you paid the same amount for data transfer on your internet connection you would be shitting blood and blowing steam out of your ears instead of saying "Who cares.[sic]".
Solving the problem of over-priced text-messaging is as simple as changing a variable or a few in the billing systems of the main carriers, no doubt.
Even during an economic downturn, there are people who text-message. Lowering the cost of that text-messaging means they have more money to put into buying clothes or butter or cars or computer games or any actual goods that drive the economy rather than spending arbitrarily inflated amounts to the major mobile carriers.
Repeat after me: "THIS IS NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME!". Just because one Senator writes a letter on the subject of cell-phone company gouging, doesn't mean he can't also fight on any of those issues that you deem more important. It also doesn't mean that other Senators can't fight for those other issues. Or are you implying that all Senators are in collusion and fighting only for lower text-messaging costs?
No wonder America is eating itself if they allow people like the parent to vote...
Seventeen bytes is REALLY A TAX ON OUR INFRASTRUCTURE, DON't YOU UNDERSTAND!?
Screw this, I'll use the internet thankyouverymuch.
if we'd just established a national telecom network rather than give subsidies to the telecoms so that we can pay for the infrastructure they ream us for using, then this wouldn't be happening.
IT/communications infrastructure is just as important as roads and sewers these days. and there are much more efficient ways of managing our national communications network than the mess of private networks we have right now--which does not give us the benefits of consumer choice, yet still lacks any kind of centralized planning which a natural monopoly ought to have.
if all communications infrastructure could be nationalized, the first thing to do would be to:
compare the progress & development made on the internet/web as an open public communication network with that of our nation's cellular networks. very little innovation or technological progress has been made in cellular technology because these proprietary networks are closed to outside developers. only a small number of handset makers are given permission to build devices for use on these private networks, and the telecoms' tight grip of these networks preclude the possibility of adopting new features.
and since the internet can handle the transmission of digital video, audio & text just fine, there's no point in having redundant communications networks that are dedicated to TV/radio/telecommunication--especially in the case of long distance calls and text messages where telecoms charge extortionate prices for something which costs close to nothing to accomplish through the public internet.
and if cellular networks were converted into municipal wi-fi coverage, not only would it provide ubiquitous wi-fi internet access for everyone, but we'd stop having to pay extortionate rates for cellular data plans. we would be converting a highly specialized network of limited usefulness to a much more generally useful network that can accomplish all of the same things and more.
Capitalism works just fine ... text messaging is too expensive, so I don't use it.
There ... capitalism at it's finest. If someone using text messaging is complaining it's too expensive, then maybe they should look at alternatives or STFU. THAT is what capitalism is all about.
Oh. So when I get a message telling me that Zoltan has prepared my fortune for me, or that my Perfect Crush is waiting for me, or I can find out my top five Perfect Lovers and I get dinged $0.10 apiece for receiving them, just exactly how is that "capitalism at its finest" and how, pray-tell, am I supposed to stop 'using' it?
Per-text messaging rates exist to punish those who send or receive the occasional message. It has nothing to do with the big "problem" the telecom companies are talking about - the power text users who're "clogging" the network with their flurry of messages. Those, you see, are on low-priced fixed-rate unlimited message plans so they remain unaffected.
It's simple math. At $0.10 apiece, unless and until I start sending/receiving more than 50 messages consistently each and every month it's not worthwhile for me to sign up for a plan - even though it's a mere $5.00 per month. However any time I talk to a rep from my phone company they tell me my option is to do just that.
This isn't capitalism; it's extortion.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Um, no; the 2nd amendment uses the term "arms" which is more general than "firearms." That said, I'm not sure that water is rightly categorized as an arm...
the services work over _public_ airwaves (don't get me started on the fallacy of airwave "sales/auctions"), which are naturally constrained. This is one industry which is under-regulated.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
While the big boys are charging $100 or more for their unlimited calling plans, there are a couple smaller providers that offer unlimited calling and texting and everything else for less than $50 (even down to $30 if you just want unlimited talk). And more importantly, there are no contracts involved. Hell, here (in Vegas) they're even offering the first month or two free (depending on which provider).
It took a while, but the general populace is finally getting fed up with the nickel-and-diming that the big wireless companies are so fond of, and the small providers out there selling unlimited services at a reasonable price are growing by leaps and bounds because of it.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
To examine your straw man a bit closer, who's arguing that bottled water keeps people safer by enabling them to kill people with the pull of a trigger?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Let me get this straight. You see a guy passing a gun through security, getting on your flight, and you'd feel safer?
Yep. Because I'd have one too. So if he is a bad guy, I will see his, he will see mine, and probably figure I'm not the only one. So more likely, he's another one just like me.
What I don't fscking like is that they don't charge for SENDING text messages, they charge for RECEIVING them. If you don't want to pay for individual text messages received, you have to pay $5 each month for unlimited texts. So you either pay them 50 or 60 cents a month for some spam texts that you never wanted, or you pay them $5. It's theft. Imagine if the postal service charged you to receive mail. Think of all the junk mail out there that people would send you for free. Fsck that. They should charge for sending texts. Receiving should be free.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
You must be fun at parties.
(Not disagreeing with you, but part of the government's job is to halt monopolistic practices. One senator is working on that which is great IMO.)
It's not a free market because I can't purchase AT&Ts text messages if I'm a TMobile customer and vice versa. If your car could only buy gas from one company then you would see extravagantly priced gasoline.
Yes, clearly. That's why I said "vain hopes".
My surprise was that all of slashdot (including many intelligent posters) is invariably shocked, shocked! to hear once again that there is no competition in the sms market. Or, even more strangely, they make logical arguments assuming that prices are competitive.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
I don't want to be able to receive text messages, but this is not an option. Ergo, I get to pay USD$0.20 per *unwanted* text message.
In other words, I lose even though I don't want to play.
That's the problem right there. In the US, the person *receiving* the message pays for part of it. In sensible countries (like Australia), the person *sending* the message bears the full cost - there is zero charge to receive a message.
As a result, there is a *lot* less SMS spam in Australia.
"Or are you implying that all Senators are in collusion and fighting only for lower text-messaging costs?"
No. They are all going after populist minor problems that everyone can agree on, but aren't major issues. Most of the time, the problems they examine aren't solvable by congress directly anyway and its a huge waste of time. Congress has examined Exxon multiple times, but usually only in an election year. They are letting the real problems slide in order to get re-elected more easily. The entire process has become circular. "If I vote for this my critics will tear me apart and I won't be re-elected to solve problems in the future". Sound familiar?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
The 4 carriers will bundle up some private campaign contributions from their employees for the good Senator, just like Big Oil did for Obama so that he could somewhat plausibly deny taking campaign contributions directly from Big Oil, and that is the last we'll ever hear of this matter.
Did you know that that soft drink you pay $3.50 for at the movie theater costs the movie theater pennies worth of syrup and cold water?
What I find more outrageous is the drink smuggling industry -- it's costing the Movie industry an estimated $12.5 Million a year! It's obvious that they have to charge more to make up for these substantial losses.
A neutral communications medium is essential. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true.
Obviously you're missing a few economics classes. The perfect competition isn't about the price people is willing to pay, that's a monopoly or in this case, an oligarchy. Perfect competition should theoretically reduce the cost of the service to the cost of providing the service.
Yeah but the only problem with "ordinary citizens" is they tend to miss the bad guy and hit grandma over there in the aisle seat ;)
[citation needed]
And while you're doing your research for that citation, be sure to include statistics comparing handgun use between CCW holders and uniformed LEOs.
The water cannon?
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
This is really just a case of economics in the context of our country's flavor of laissez faire capitalism...
The cell phone service provider market exists in what's called an oligopoly right now, i.e. a handful of large providers dominate the field. This is further complicated by users entering into (typically) two year contracts which freeze their monthly prices and the providers segmenting their users by charging more for what they perceive for "business use" (e.g. unlimited data on a typical consumer phone through verizon is15/month (vcast), with blackberry it is 30/month, with a blackberry using enterprise server (i.e. the only way to file mail into folders, calendar sync wirelessly, etc.), it's 45/month).
Given the market structure (oligopoly), prices don't have to tend toward the price of a service. The providers have gradually increased their prices in order to maximize their income. They realize that people are willing to pay more for text messaging and are charging for it. Further, each time they raise rates, they give users an exemption from their early termination fee though most people don't switch between providers much since most people typically can't choose between more than 2 in a given market and still receive good service.
Ultimately, over time mobile email will overtake SMS but that's just my prediction.
I'm not sure that water is rightly categorized as an arm
There's a lot of water in my arm....... ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...American Idol. Yes, it may seem like a rather simplistic answer to the bullshit pricing schemas, but sometimes the truth IS that simple.
If you ACTUALLY think that American Idol still exists after this many seasons because the music industry is dying for talent vs. the $15 - $20 million in revenue generated week after week with bullshit text voting, you're sadly mistaken.
Shit, every other consumer text plan looks like a bargain compared to that crap.
The price of text messages is unreasonable. Proof can be found in the fact that during a disaster such as a hurricane the mobile companies urge people to use text messaging instead of voice communications. Either mobile companies are scalping people by suggesting the more expensive text messaging during times of emergency, or it is less expensive to maintain the text messaging network.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Although I'm inclined to agree with the other posters who say it's greed, I don't think that's the reason (at least not all of the reason).
The companies are optimizing for profit in a given regulatory setup. If you want to change the behavior you have to change the regulations.
Until that happens (anyone want to bet on when it will?) the telcos will keep sucking.
My UID is prime. Hah!
if there are 4 providers and all 4 change there price from 10 cents to 20 at about the same time (in the US) it is collusion and is illegal. Ask the Pacific air cargo companies.
the 2nd amendment uses the term "arms" which is more general than "firearms."
Dynamite. If not dynamite (because it is a construction utility) then grenades.
Please re-evaluate your use of the word "trolling" in the post above.
Honestly expressing an opinion which is unpopular or which is contrary to your opinion is not trolling.
Honestly expressing an opinion or fact which is objectively wrong is not trolling.
Trolling has been defined as "To deliberately post false or controversial messages to gain attention for the sake of gaining attention."
Posting a message on Slashdot that says that the next Apple will run Windows is trolling. Posting a message that McCain is gay on a right-wing discussion board is trolling. Posting a message that Honda hasn't made a good car in decades on a Honda discussion board is trolling.
Referring to taxes on cigarettes and alcohol as "vice taxes," on the other hand, is common usage. GP was clearly not trolling, no matter what his opinions and/or your opinions on the subject of taxing cigarettes and alcohol may be. It's not about correctness or popularity, but rather about intent. Let's keep the word "troll" a clear, distinct, and useful concept instead of bending it into "someone who disagrees with me about something."
My truck is like a series of tubes.
Yep. Because I'd have one too. So if he is a bad guy, I will see his, he will see mine, and probably figure I'm not the only one. So more likely, he's another one just like me.
Meanwhile, the other guy's thinking: "Whoops. Looks like dumbass brought a gun to a plane fight."
Breakfast served all day!
fyi, us canadians have a much lower gun+murder rate than you americans. And the biggest difference between us (besides gun control laws) is the fact that everyone knows that 90% of our movies suck.
You'd either be passed out from sheer exhaustion, or working furiously away lest your employer get the idea he could get slightly more production at less cost from some desperate member of the surplus population.
or you'd be insanely rich because you're making money off the backs of other people.
It's a fucking email, it should be delivered for free within the cost of regular service.
Mobile phones can send text messages now? Cool.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I agree, but let me play devil's advocate: as long as there are people willing to pay such high prices, shouldn't the phone companies be allowed to charge as much as they want? Here in the USA the vast majority of consumers have choices when it comes to phone service. So it's not as its a case of a monopoly jacking up prices. And though it is true that the market has consolodated from six to four carriers since '05, I think that the rise in costs has more to do with the growth in popularity of texting. In the face of rising prices, texting is only becoming more (not less) popular. Finally, it's not as though texting and IM are vital serverices that people *need*. We not be alllowed to charge as much as people are willing to pay?
However, I think the mess with text-messaging is just a symptom of larger problems: service contracts with hefty early-termination fees, and phones that are bound to particular networks. If people could easily jump to a different phone company, I can easily see companies try to differentiate on price.
We set up a family plan with Verizon a month ago. An additional $5 US charge on the plan got us unlimited incoming and 250 outgoing (shared) messaged. That seemed reasonable.
Then, we got our first bill. Nearly $200 in txt messaging charges, at a rate of about $1 per message. Apparently, although we made double sure, the rep who set up our plan over the phone didn't include txt messaging.
I'm thinking class action, I know I'm not the only one whose getting nailed like this. $5 vs $200, it's criminal.
I'll likely be able to talk them out of the charge, but that's beside the point.
The odds are in your favor. He isn't the only one carrying a gun. A lot of people are. How many? Who knows, but neither does that bad guy. The chances are, not all the guys who are carrying guns are bad. Even one good guy carrying a gun greatly increases your chances against a bad guy.
On the other hand, banning guns from both will only stop the good guy from being dangerous.
Yeah, but the remaining 10 minutes are worth watching -- you're allowed to show nipples and even an occasional glimpse of a fanny!
It seems silly to nickel and dime-ing us for texting (actually that'd be quarter-ing, but that brings up excessive imagery...). I pay for a plan that gives me minutes for calls. Why not just deduct a minute for each text? Any text is clearly only going to take you the equivalent of less than a minute of a normal phone call to say. Why not just charge that way? Adding on .25 each time I text seems retarded when I have 300 unused minutes each month (I'm on the lowest minute plan too). Thankfully I at least get free incoming calls, texts, and photos. The lowest texting plan is still actually below the amount I pay for texting now. So it's still more cost effective for me to pay per text than to sign up for a texting plan. This is only because I don't respond to texts unless it is important. If they would charge differently I'd probably use it more often. It just bugs the shit out of me looking at my bill when I get charged extra for texts while I never come close to exhausting 3/4 of my minutes...
Um... okay. I'd personally call it 95% for ours, but whatever. What's your point?
"People are willing to pay $0.10 to send a text message. What it COSTS to provide the message is irrelevant."
The cost is not irrelevant. If consumers are willing to buy for $.1 and the providers are willing to sell for $.01, economics says the price should be between $.01 and $.1. But why should it be $.1 and not $.01? Why is it clamped at what the consumers are willing to pay and not what the providers are willing to sell for?
It is because the providers set the stage. They have control of the market. They operate together, not necessarily directly through collusion, but possibly indirectly through using the same marketing research companies, industry organizations, et cetera.
In a healthy market, the price floats somewhere between the minimum price the providers are willing to sell for and the maximum price the sellers are willing to buy for. There is a give-and-take. Prices may hit one end of the clamp or another from time to time due to natural fluctuations, but when it is grossly disproportionate to actual costs, then there is something wrong. The market is unhealthy and is being unfairly manipulated.
That is why cost is relevant.
Personally I think you are f%cked in the head
One word:
Collusion.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Did you know that people sell oil and gold for more than the cost to mine it?
Did you now the Oil companies are watched like hawks for trust violations? and that a large part of oil prices are set by the largest cartel in the world? Hardly a free market.
Did you know that that soft drink you pay $3.50 for at the movie theater costs the movie theater pennies worth of syrup and cold water?
Sounds like vendor lock in, which last time I checked was considered a coercion of the free market.
Did you know that many drugs sold for $10 or more a pill cost mere pennies to manufacture? All you have to do is invest a few billion in finding one that works
NO, bad idiot, read some facts. drug companies spend more on ads then R&D, it's just they get the govt. to strong arm everyone through intellectual property laws to pay more, Complete failure of the free market.
In the competitive free-market advocated by Milton Friedman, not The oligopolistic-market advocated by the modern republicans, the consumer demand and the cost of supply set prices, not the whims of some giant company that has strong armed govt. support and stifled competition.
It's basic morals, universalize the maxim: if every company did the same you'd only have on company left after a while, it would be the one who controlled the food and you'd have to sell your life away for just enough food to survive. It happened in the past, it was called feudalism, and is basically what your view of business advocates at it's extreme.
I can definitely say that the price of text messaging is set to maximize profits only.
They understand that kids will be kids and won't listen to their parents and text 10 to 1000 times more than they are supposed to.
That being said, text messaging is to Cellular companies what last barrel pricing is to the big oil companies.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Isn't that how it works now?
"That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
Kohl for President!
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
ice javelins. portable drowning equipment, ie. steam cannons.
cmon, get creative. plenty of opportunities to use water as a weapon.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
And while the incremental cost of sending a text message may be $0, all you have to do to send them is invest a few hundred billion in a cell phone network....
...and get the public air wave spectrum from the public or get popped by the FCC. Not a free market because I can't set up my own cell phone company right now. Deregulation means deregulating the air waves which means anyone could jam Rush with impunity, and you wouldn't like that, would you? Now, go back to your pretendsville and keep thinking we could have a *real* free market out there.
Just callin' it like I see it.
What you are advocating is MAD on a plane scale,and it simply won't work. MAD works because BOTH sides want to not only win the conflict,but survive. The guys that take planes and ram them into buildings obviously DON'T care if they survive. Which means that they'd be happy to take your bullets,as long as they can manage to put theirs through the controls of the plane along with the pilot and copilot just to make sure the infidels die. Which is why I'm sad to say we will probably always be dealing with Islamic terrorists. Because as a wise person once said "They have to love their children more than they hate us." and I just don't see that happening. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think it would be a real freakin' eye opener if terrorists (or freedom fighters*1, whichever) were to sneak water bottles full of explosives in with a shipment, to be brought on board planes by other terrorists (or freedom fighters).
It'd almost be great to see terrorists do it. It would surely be great if it were done by freedom fighters, who may be inclined to detonate them away from others, but still in public view. Prison time? Yes. But it kills/harms nobody and gets a strong point across.
We're less safe now than we have ever been.
*1 - defined as anyone willing to give up some of their freedoms so that others may keep them
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Google for a cite for this but...
In some countries, it is legal (and common) to carry on a plane.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The terrorist isn't going to sue you.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
It's Magic!
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
businesses are hurting them because capitalism ISN'T working as designed...
It certainly isn't. Try lifting all regulations and removing the government's visible hand and invisible foot from the market and then Capitalism will work as designed.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
if Slavery was working as "designed" you wouldn't have enough idle time in the day to post to slashdot to complain about it.
There, fixed that for you. :)
Send your spendthrift head of state this
The fact that it hasn't implies that the cellular market is not free.
Says who? There are four providers of text messages, and several other means of communicating data. Would you believe that for many people, the VERY SAME DEVICE that sends text messages for $0.10 can be used to send a one-minute voice communication for ZERO INCREMENTAL COST to the customer, but the customer chooses to pay the $0.10 anyway?
Not to mention the myriad of other ways people have to share information OTHER than text messages.
The high prices of text messages indicate that there's no competition in that market.
Except that YOU don't get to decide whether the price is high or not. The market does. And the *MARKET* has decided that the price of text messages is reasonable. People are willing to pay $0.10 to send a text message. What it COSTS to provide the message is irrelevant.
Did you know that people sell oil and gold for more than the cost to mine it? Did you know that that soft drink you pay $3.50 for at the movie theater costs the movie theater pennies worth of syrup and cold water?
Did you know that you can get a cell phone plan that lets you talk on your phone from nearly anywhere in the country and to anywhere in the country for *LESS* than it used to cost for a landline and long distance?
Did you know that many drugs sold for $10 or more a pill cost mere pennies to manufacture? All you have to do is invest a few billion in finding one that works.
And while the incremental cost of sending a text message may be $0, all you have to do to send them is invest a few hundred billion in a cell phone network....
At the end of the day, if people are willing to pay $0.10 a minute and $0.10 a message, then that's what people are willing to pay. Which one provides the better margins to the cellular company is irrelevant, as long as people are willing to pay the price charged and the company has enough revenue to stay in business.
What are you dense?
Cell prices, internet, phone service, cable tv, software, music, videos, oil/gas. The list goes on.
None of these things have anything to do with your warm fuzzy ideal of a free market, there is no deciding by the customers. Market forces mean little to a cartel, even less to one thats lucky enough to control something people can't do without.
"what the market will bear" its the biggest load of shit I've heard since "piracy is killing the music industry"
You think 5 dollar a gallon gas is what the market could bear?
Wake up and smell reality, the American dollar crashed, It's lost nearly half its value, imports died, markets that relied on exporting to the states have died. The Canadian manufacturing market is crashing hard because the US cant afford the price of gas to ship it down to the states, and the weaker dollar means they can't afford to buy as much either. Car companies are posting billion dollar losses, and don't expect to see a proift for years to come. Who wants to buy a car when a gas for a month costs more than your lease payments?
The price of food is skyrocketing up. It costs more to ship food from the farm to the store (and usually a processing plant in between), even people who have no cars are being driven under by the high price of gas.
And for all that, for destabilizing the market on an entire continent, when the price of oil starts coming back down what does OPEC do? They start talking about cutting back production to keep the price where it is.
This has nothing to do with what the market can bear, the market is dieing under the price of oil. but since OPEC is a consortium they don't worry about market forces, there are no competitors for them, no body will spring up start selling gas and half the rate its currently at (that was the price about 8 years ago).
Why does this work anyway? because we NEED oil, our whole way of life is based on it, even the military is chained to an oil dependency. We pay what ever t
That only works when hiring skill-less drones in widget factories. As soon as a third-grade-equivalent education is required to do the job, people stop being immediately replaceable. Hell, even Starbucks has to train people on how to make 11,000 different types of coffee.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I've lived in London. Your system is worse than ours. While we've been ballsing it up recently with texting charges like this article about, per-text rates on pay-as-you go phones are much more than they are here. Why? There's no reason for the different carries to lower the amount they charge for incoming messages. Not only that, I don't see how they could do it. At least in the UK, they don't have specific prefixes for the different network, so for the wireless carriers to change their incoming prices, they have to get everyone to sit down and negotiate what it would be.
And I think in terms of calling, having each side pay their half makes things work out so much better.
-Bucky
The controls are pretty redundant, and their routing is not obvious from anywhere inside the passenger module. The odds of randomly hitting anything critical with a centimeter-wide slug from a handgun before other passengers with guns would take you out is astronomical. Especially if they just had a bowl of complementary derringers at the boarding ramp.
And how is "not able to fight back" going to help us with that?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Basically, the US Constitution was supposed to say what the government was allowed to do. Specifically it is not stating what the citizens are allowed to do. It limits government, or was supposed to.
It was brilliant - form a country with a government what was basically not allowed to do anything but defend its citizens from not being free...
If it wasn't in the constitution, the federal government wasn't supposed to be doing it.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Actually, in the US, both parties get charged. Granted you can send them for free by emailing phonenumber@carrier.com, but the only people doing that are companies like Facebook sending texts to their users' cell phones.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
One. Great. What the hell are the rest of them doing?
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Very good, senator. You have discovered that price is NOT based on cost plus markup. Price is determined by supply and demand, and texts will be priced the highest that the market will bear.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Imagine if cell phone service had been a national government run service with no competition from the beginning.... I bet you'd we'd still have giant brick phones that had voice only, maybe just now in 2008 adapting to digital service, to free up bandwidth, but definitely no text messaging, data plans, multimedia messaging, etc...
Lack of competition and government control mean one thing... complete lack of innovation.
It's a joke, guys. He's commenting on how Republicans always paint Democrats as elitists, no matter how much their policies benefit the little guy. Republicans will destroy us economically and send us to be maimed or killed in a war, but you're an "elitist" if you suggest that we deserve a living wage and affordable health care.
A less radical solution would be to simply make it illegal for a company to both transport data and sell devices to access the network, and enforce network neutrality. The data delivery company can still have different pricing tiers: realtime service is more expensive than non-realtime, for example.
You buy your phone from company A, then you pay company B to get your data from point to point. If you make a voice call, you pay for realtime service, by the byte. If you want to send a text, you pay for non-realtime service, by the byte. If company B jacks up the non-realtime service, you send your texts using the realtime service, which is entirely supported by your handset because the independent handset maker/seller HAS to support that feature to keep up with all the others.
I think a Senators time is zero-sum. Not that I'm against lowering texting rates.
"f you paid the same amount for data transfer on your internet connection you would be shitting blood and blowing steam out of your ears instead of saying "Who cares.[sic]"."
Not even close. If you paid text messaging rates for your internet connection you'd just laugh when you got the bill and throw it away as a joke. Text rates here are over a MILLION dollars per gigabyte.
Fuck off.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The price per a la carte SMS has gone up, however there are plenty of cheap plans replacing them.
So, you've got people shifting to the plans, typically your high-quantity users. The customers remaining are unwilling to pay US$10/mo for an SMS plan. These people will be the ones who don't send many per month.
Since the cost to bill an SMS is fixed (the network has been purchased, but not paid for), and as the number of a la carte SMS that the network delivers drops, that component of the per-SMS price goes up. That will result in upwards price pressure.
Even better, SMS bundles are cheaper to administer and bill than a la carte. That provides the carrier with an additional incentive to convince people to shift to a plan.
BTW, customers like the certainty that comes with a fixed-price unlimited bundle.
Also, I've seen figures saying that about 2/3..3/4 of a carrier's operating costs revolve around billing.
Sounds great in theory. In practice, it's like getting Ma Bell back, except with less innovation. Nationalizing and merging is the easy part, retaining the talent to keep it effective is next to impossible. -- Hiten
I find it kind of odd that Kohl didn't include US Cellular as a recipient of his letter. As one of the big regional telecom players in Wisconsin, you'd think they'd be on his radar, particularly considering that their a la carte SMS rates have nearly doubled (from 15 cents to 25 cents per msg) in the last 2 years.
Oh well, I guess I'd expect Herb Kohl to forget to include them on the letter... he's been becoming quite senile over the last few years. Luckily for the Badger State, we've got the notoriously feisty Russ Feingold as our other Senator, and he's been busy with more important telecoms issues... like trying to stop Ma Bell's metamorphosis into Big Brother.
So where's the cutoff? Rifles? Sawedoffs? Bazookas? Anything that can fit in an overhead? How about a minimum amount of explosive? Can I carry a bomb on board?
I think airline security is pretty ridiculous as is, but I at least expect them to recognize a gun shape on an xray - the odds are pretty good. And I wouldn't expect any one to be able to take down an airliner after 9/11 with anything less than something that can blow it up. The pilots aren't opening the door no matter how many people you shoot in the back, and the passengers aren't sitting there because unlike the people on those flights they know they've got no chance otherwise.
Funny, and somewhat related story:
A (non-technical) friend and I were sitting around talking about cell phones. He was transferring numbers from his old phone to his new one. I was complaining about how frustrating that was, and wishing it could just be transferred automatically.
He says: "Yeah, hopefully someday they'll have the technology to do that..."
It actually rendered me speechless. The technology?
Overrated != Disagree
Which TSA agent got mod points today?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Read the post again - he was talking about handing every passenger a gun as they boarded the plane, not just CCW license holders.
Actually they usually charge us on both ends. Both the receiver and the sender pay.
herb, $5mil deposited in reelect account. pls confirm and good luck. this txt msg free for u as gift.
No wonder America is eating itself if they allow people like the parent to vote...
We also allow people who can't read the post to vote. Also people who can't understand the post when it's read to them.
I want to chime in with maxume (above).
In college, I had a friend that worked at Home Depot while majoring in Economics.
He always laughed about all the customers that would complain to him about the high prices and then continue to buy stuff from Home Depot. The obvious thought being, "if it's too expensive then don't buy it here". But the same customers kept coming back. Proving that the prices were NOT too expensive for them (not enough to make those customers seek other sellers or alternative options).
IMO, money speaks louder than words.
If people pay this much for text messages then text messages must be worth that price to them.
The proof being, people keep paying for them!
-J_Tom_Moon_79
I think you hit the nail on the head. The implicit collusion between the cell companies so that prices are the same and so that switching is difficult makes it so that refusing to use them when they charge that much is impossible. For instance, I certainly see the utility, for instance, setting up a quick lunch date while in class or giving directions in a crowded, loud bar or restaurant. However, I refuse to pay extra for something that shouldn't be, so I just don't use them, and even turned them off on my last phone so I couldn't be charged with recieving them. Of course, plenty of people don't seem to care, and I can't switch to something else easily, so the system rolls forward, despite what seems to act like a trust, even if they don't actually meet to agree on set prices.
Of course I just got an EDGE iPhone, so I couldn't avoid them this time, but its $10 less than my old blackberry plan for basically the same thing (minus push data, plus 200 SMS), so I can't complain too much this time.
I use Cricket and pay only $45 a month for unlimited text, calls, and data so I'm getting a kick out of these replies.
What crack are you and the moderators smoking? That doesn't even bear a passing resemblance to Capitalism, in theory or in practice!
One of the free markets in capitalism is your right and privilege to sell your labor at a mutually agreeable price. While that may not always 100% work out in pratice, it sure doesn't work out to what you described... which, I would point out, is a hell of a lot closer in practice to how Communism turned out in the Soviet Union.
Why don't you and some moderators actually go learn about capitalism from something other than a socialist/communist?
Here's one: If seat belts made us safer, we'd be allowed to wear them on commercial flights.
if Capitalism was working as "designed"...You'd either be passed out from sheer exhaustion
You've got it backwards - life before Capitalism was filled with exhausting, back-breaking labor. And people died young. And you couldn't advance your condition socially.
Thank you, Capitalism!
Mine is Good
This is not a market failure, but rather a government failure. It's the government that's decided that we aren't mature enough to send and receive whatever broadcasts we want over whatever spectrum we want. The spectrum is, in theory, infinitely divisible, and essentially limitless. But of course we can't find the most effective way to limit interference and broadcast over anarchic airwaves unless we're forced to compete - unless it's either find a way to broadcast, or don't. Until the FCC stops regulating the air, you'll never see a true free market in cellular data (and voice, whatever). Rationalitate
This is what you call "vulgar libertarianism": defending the status quo, even though it's not actually the libertarian solution. It's the government that's decided that we aren't mature enough to send and receive whatever broadcasts we want over whatever spectrum we want. The spectrum is, in theory, infinitely divisible, and essentially limitless. But of course we can't find the most effective way to limit interference and broadcast over anarchic airwaves unless we're forced to compete - unless it's either find a way to broadcast, or don't. Until the FCC stops regulating the air, you'll never see a true free market in cellular data (and voice, whatever). So, rather than defending capitalism by saying, "So don't buy it!" it would be better to explain why this isn't a failure of capitalism.
Rationalitate
If you paid the same amount for data transfer on your internet connection you would be shitting blood and blowing steam out of your ears
Yeah, and if you paid the same amount for data transfer by tatooing messages to fat people and having them unicycle across the country, you would be doing cartwheels on rose petals and whistling zippity-doo-dah out your pee-hole.
The PSTN is not the same thing as the internet, so you shouldn't be comparing them as if they were.
Mine is Good
I know this is a site for developers but not economists but as a developer who has some econ background it pains me to read the horribly misplaced beliefs about the behavior of firms in the teleco industry.
First of all this is not a monopoly, it is truly closer to an Oligopoly where there is still some competition in the market. Furthermore you don't even have to be an economist to understand a rise in costs you just need some common sense. As time has passed people have demanded more text messages, their demand has increased. Due to this the consumer is willing to pay more for text messages at a given price. Telecos' costs have probably not risen dramatically, however, because demand has risen they have become willing to supply more text messages at a higher price. This higher price is a refleciton of both competition and increased demand. Determing which is more at charge is a much more complicated issue but the idea of blaming this on monopolistic behavior, greed, or a lack of care on the side of the consumer is just ignorant.
what if it was modeled after academic/research institutions like Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, Los Alamos National Laboratories/DOE, CERN, etc.?
the belief that commercial competition is the only driving force for innovation is a myth. ARPANET was not born of commercial competition. ask Tim Berners-Lee if his vision of the World Wide Web was spurred by competition.
in any case, these are cultural problems. perhaps we _are_ becoming a world full of 'Thomas Edison's rather than 'Nikola Tesla's. if you build a society in which money & wealth are what makes the world turn, then that is what people will aspire towards. likewise, if you build a communications infrastructure which is operated by commercial corporations, run by businessmen & CEOs with MBAs rather than PhDs, then of course all technological progress will rest on the actions and decisions of people driven purely by financial motivations.
however, if you establish a communications infrastructure which operates like an academic/research institution, as is done with most cutting edge research/technology (ex. the LHC), then it'll be intellectually-driven individuals who rise to positions of power and push the technology forward.
Yes, that's how it works.
Don't forget to vote Republican. So it can work for you.
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
They refund it if asked, every time that I have had that issue at least.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Is this really the type of thing that our elected officials should be worrying about? Seriously folks...
Or maybe a showy issue that most americans can identify with, will help non-technical americans realize how badly monopolies are robbing them? You know, and I know, that the cost of sending a text message is so incredibly small charging any amount of money beyond voice service is essentially highway robbery. But many people think it's new, and thus must be a huge complicated thing.
A couple of comments:
1) I'm not sure why people seem to believe the cost of producing a good should determine the selling price. Demand and the manufacturer's desire to maximize profit does that. Simply becaasue something can be produced cheaply does not mean it should be sold cheaply as well.
2) I would not call US cellphone industry a monopoly - Not only have prices dropped considerably we have a variety of providers and plans to chose from. For example, I can get unlimited text and calls for $38/month with no contract;$35 if all you want is unlimited text with minimal minutes.
Yeah, text messages themselves are stupid secondary problems. But waking people up, and forcing them out of the idiocy of news tv talking heads, and forcing them into the cognitive dissonance caused when they realize businesses are hurting them because capitalism ISN'T working as designed... that helps a lot. Otherwise it sounds like a bunch of pompous academics in suits talkin fancy words and talkin smack about god and the president.
Let's see - companies compete; prices go down; new companies spring up in the market - it isn't perfect but it's better than the alternative.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
assuming the bad guy thinks at all and isnt just a crazy bad guy who will shoot the crap out of the plane regardless....
There is a very basic concept in economics, also sometimes referred to as supply and demand, that states (in simple terms) that "things cost what people are willing to pay". This is why you'll pay $4.50 for a tub of popcorn at the movie theaters where you might not be willing to do so anywhere else.
Simply put, text messages prices are based on what people have been willing to pay up until now.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I wish the Senator meant to raise the questions he raised...but reading between the lines, he's saying: "Why didn't you give me a piece of the action"
But we don't know that they're willing to sell for $0.01. All we know is that none of the participants think that lowering the price will get them more revenue. That's the price the market will bear.
It's hard to argue that some sort of oligarchy is pushing the price up when looking at something like text messages, for which there are several alternatives - it's not like anyone is ever faced with 'send a text message or die'. Or even suffer significant cost. Anyone who doesn't want to pay the costs for text messaging can simply USE THE SAME THING THEY ARE HOLDING to MAKE A PHONE CALL.
Did you know that the post office charges $0.42 per text message, and it takes days to get there?
paintball
We had a national telecom network. It abused its customers so badly for so many decades that it was broken up into a bunch of smaller pieces.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Quite right. And petrol going from $1.10/gallon to $4/gallon is no big deal either, it's only $2.90 worth of difference. There are more pressing issues than gas prices, like healthcare, crime etc.
It's amazing how we claim to be a Capitalist Economy yet all we see are Oligopolies protecting and expanding their turfs.
Where are those dozens of Oil Companies fighting for our buck? Oh that's right! They consolidated.
... the post office is charging $0.42 per text message, and it takes days to get there!
paintball
Senator overheard yelling at teen daughter.
Lucky you. I called T-Mobile and tried to disable text messages and they said it wasn't possible.
So they're forcing me to pay for something I don't want.
You can't carry around a water fountain.
If guns kept people safer we'd be allowed to carry them on commercial flights. Yes, and if everyone had knives, stabbings would be reduced.
It's easier than that to sneak a lot (80oz per person) of liquid onto a plane, especially if you're skinny.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
that's the cost of having an unregulated corporate monopoly. and that wasn't a national telecom network. the Bell Telephone Company was an entirely privately-owned commercial enterprise which the government had no hand in running, and hence the public had no control over.
communications networks are natural monopolies. that's the most efficient way to run communications infrastructure. that's why it should have been nationalized instead of simply broken up into separate companies and remaining in the private sector--which are now re-consolidating whilst the industry continues to be de-regulated.
we can keep letting the pendulum swing back and forth between a regulated & fragmented and unregulated & consolidated corporate monopoly (depending on whether the republicans are in office), or we can nationalize our communications infrastructure once and for all and treat it as a true public resource/utility. then, instead of running our communications networks based on maximizing shareholder profits, we could run them based on maximizing efficiency and public good.
By contrast: In Sweden, I get unlimited text and calls for ~$7.4/month.
If capitalism was left to run without any rules, all companies will merge to become monopolies. Eventually the very large and few corporations will control everything including the government. We would be living in another form of a totalitarian society. That's why there's rules for maintaining competition. Competition is the key to make capitalism work the way we want it to work. The lack of competition is the reason why the telcos can raise texting prices.
we could run them based on maximizing efficiency and public good.
Who's "we"? What is "we"'s motivation to maximize efficiency and public good?
The pricing of text messaging from cellphones has always been disproportionate and egregious, right from the beginning. It got that way and stayed that way because too many ignorant and/or impatient consumers were foolish enough to conclude it was a fair price. It was never a fair price. The bandwidth consumed by even a full A2 page of text pales in comparison to that consumed by even just one minute of voice data stream. SOME PEOPLE have always known this, and/or been bothered enough enough by the greed of it to say no, but those people are apparently an extremely small minority.
Text messaging is to cellular providers what fries-and-a-coke are to fast food joints: pure profit. You can't change it or people's perception of that now, any more than you can educate people to conscientiously say no to those fries and coke. The concentrators of wealth won this battle "fair and square".
Actually, *both* parties pay in the US, at least for any plan I'm familiar with. In my case, I pay 20 cents to send or receive a text. If I send a text to somebody else with a pay-per-use text plan, then *they* pay 20 cents, too. So, AT&T has just gouged its two customers 40 cents for 140 bytes of data. That's $2,995.93/MB, and it's very nearly pure profit.
Sure, there's some overhead too that this doesn't account for, but it's entirely a profit center for the cell phone providers, much like land lines are for the more old-school telecom companies. Basically, they want everybody to pay $5 more per month, because that recurring revenue stream is a lot more valuable to them.
I applaud Kohl - as a Wisconsin resident, I'm proud of both him and our other Senator, Russ Feingold. They almost convince me that politicians don't have to be sleazy...
If people complain about the $0.10 charge, why not get an unlimited or high-volume plan?
I have unlimited SMS, MMS, and internet data from AT&T for $60/mo, and I can tether it to my laptop too.
Without the internet, their high-volume (3000, I think) plan is $20/mo. That's less than a penny per message, unless you exceed 100 per day.
They also have some $5/mo plan which gives you 100 per month or something.
I don't think these prices are unfair at all.
-David
This isn't capitalism; it's extortion.
And what is the difference, exactly?
If guns kept people safer we'd be allowed to carry them on commercial flights.
Except for the fact that hitting anything but the hostile with a special projectile that won't (do as much) damage the aircraft and cause explosive decompression is not something normal gun owners are trained or equipped for.
Private ownership of firearms and good training is one thing, special cases like needing to use one 30,000 feet in the air is an entire other case.
--
We need to cut off their supply of money so that we are not paying countries that hate us. We need to drill for oil domestically,while at the same time having a Kennedy style "get off of gas in 10 years" development program. Surely if we could develop the tech to go to the moon in a decade we can develop efficient affordable electric cars in the same amount of time.
As for the one who marked me flamebait,I take it you haven't seen the videos of the 5 year olds singing "We will get to Allah with the heads of Jews and Americans on a pike!"? They teach it like a damned nursery rhyme. Or how Iran gave plastic keys to children as young as 12 and sent them to clear minefields by walking through them? Or maybe the teach kids to hate videos that start with freakin' puppets carrying AK47s? I repeat: There will NEVER be peace until they learn to love their kids more than they hate us. Because as long as they are willing to strap bombs to little kids just to kill us then there will never be peace. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The idealistic model is of course, just that: free citizens participating in consensual economic transactions, with prices set based on the supply/demand curve, supply adjusting to demand and demand changing due to price, etc.
But that all assumes functioning markets, usually idealized as perfectly competitive, with perfect information, instantly propagating price signals, etc. Some deviation from that is always true, but it really starts making the whole setup hard to maintain---and the pro-free-market philosophy hard to state with a straight face---if it deviates grossly from the ideal.
That's why we have laws to try to keep markets functioning properly. For example, to try to keep the "perfectly competitive" assumption from going too far off the deep end, we have laws against using monopoly positions in one market in a way that would manipulate another market, and laws against small numbers of companies with very large combined market share in some market colluding to set prices, reduce competition, etc. To keep the "perfect information" assumption vaguely valid, we have laws against fraud, false advertising, etc.
These are actually all good for capitalism, in the sense of a sustainable system with functioning markets that efficiently allocate resources.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This isn't anything new for the telephone companies. After they were partially deregulated, they starting gouging their wireline customers with insane markups on optional features like caller-ID, call waiting, etc. To add insult to injury, they refuse to spend any of their huge profits on doing the database lookups that would greatly improve the quality of caller-id data.
http://calleridunavailable.blogspot.com/2006/09/what-your-phone-company-doesnt-want-you.html
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
By contrast: In Sweden, I get unlimited text and calls for ~$7.4/month.
Good deal - how much is it if you stayed with that plan, and went to say Portugal, Germany and France for a month and sent a 1000 texts and called for say 200 minutes?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I can just see the scenario:
- The plane is full, 250+ people, middle aged business men, kids, fathers, mothers, grannies, granpas, ...
- Middle eastern looking guy gets up from his seat to go to the bathroom passes nervous passenger.
- Nervous passenger spots that middle eastern looking guy has a gun, pulls his own gun and in his nervousness misfires.
- Multiple people pull out their guns, shots all over, no place to run, everybody is shouting.
- Several people get hit, pilot is dead, co-pilot is wounded, one engine is down due to a stray bullet. A kid is crying, grabbing his mother which is bleeding to death.
Yupes, that really makes me feel safe ...
Lying Verizon commercials showing a couple buying a house that is in a known "dead zone" but "the network" says its OK, because they're "with them".
When we bought our house in May, the dead zone was/is a dead zone and Verizon's CEO's secretary told me to find another carrier - the schmuck that he is. Maybe its time to investigate why companies LIE so much.
That is the crux of the matter. While they are not happy with current cell phone rates they still pay them. Even when there are viable alternatives I have seen people go with specific carriers because of the phones offered or the "deal" offered when joining.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
... the post office is charging $0.42 per text message, and it takes days to get there!
Yes, but a post office text message can contain about 840 Verizon text messages and a memory card with 16 GB of data. Trying to send that over a cell phone would take half a week of data transfer and cost you three arms and a leg!
WERE kids.nowadays we have the 21/22 year olds who grew up with cell phones that text messaged between networks since they were in high school/middle school, who are now entering the workplace ($$$) and now paying for this on their own. The 25 and up crowd only saw txt messaging work across all networks "flawlessly" toward the end of high school/college and have had to pay for/meter their own usage for a lot longer.
I suspect in reality its half greed, half desire to push users onto a fixed txt msging plan ($4.99/ month for 400 msgs, $9.99/ month for unlimited, or whatever). Whever makes the argument that the cost of the service is what's driving the cost up is an idiot. The first thing budget carriers offer is free unlimited txt msging, and most times they're much cheaper than "nationwide carriers".
moox. for a new generation.
It's been noted that most mass shootings happen in 'gun free zones' where people aren't allowed to carry guns for self defense.
When shooters have tried to hit non gun free zones, generally they're shot before they get far.
I don't read AC A human right
We need to drill for oil domestically,while at the same time having a Kennedy style "get off of gas in 10 years" development program.
I'm with you so long as you don't fall for the McCain claptrap that starting to explore and drill now will have significant production online before the 10 years is up. The oil economy isn't just a truck you can throw things on. You have to build a new series of tubes first (site finds, drill rigs, transports, refineries). That takes years, by which time the demand destruction from high oil prices will have created low oil prices, and the new production will drop the prices further, just in time to bankrupt the companies making the new environmentally friendly producs.
The "Drill" crowd makes me sad.
Right, because we can only deal with one thing at a time.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Which is why I said the person receiving pays for *part* of the charge in the US ... i.e. both the sender and receiver pay part of it.
And I'm not going to post this same message to each reply that misunderstood my original post.
10c/msg? What provider do you have? That's dirt cheap nowadays. I thought they all hiked it to 15c.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
The odds of randomly hitting anything critical with a centimeter-wide slug from a handgun before other passengers with guns would take you out is astronomical. Especially if they just had a bowl of complementary derringers at the boarding ramp.
Oh great, then I'd have someone's kid shooting the back of my seat for the whole flight.
Not sure about swedish operators, but in finland, text remain the same price no matter where you are(ie. free if you have an unlimited plan).
The reason you pay for receiving calls in a foreign country is simply because the caller has no way of knowing where you are. The rule is that anything you cannot influence is uncharged. So receiving calls and messages inside the country is free.
The american texting system seems to me like the phone company saying: You are receiving a collect call, You will take the charges, if you want to or not. A bit backward I'd say.
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
Is that what you call yours?
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Watch much tv? Shooting through the walls of an airplane with a handgun does not cause explosive decompression.
welcome to south africa
What, you mean like taking your SIM card from your old phone and putting it in the new phone?
Nice! Here's another:
If four ounces of shampoo kept people safer we'd be allowed to carry it on commercial flights.
We will be dependent on oil for at least 50 years, battery technology has a long way to come, the battery life needs to be extended four or five times from where it's at now and be able to recharge in 5-10 minutes. Fuel Cell technology has a long way to go also there is currently no good way to pull the hydrogen from water efficiently so that stations can be set up, also the storage of hydrogen in cars is a problem because highly compressed hydrogen does not contain enough energy to get more then 100 miles.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
The price of something on the street should have nothing to do with how much it costs. The only thing that is important is what the buyer is willing to pay for it.
We do certainly have the power to fix this. You port your number to the carrier with the cheapest text messaging plan, and you tell you old carrier why you made the move. Everyone has had a chance to do this at least once since 2005 (assuming you hit with a 2 year contract) many of us have had three chances.
With my myFaves plan at T-Mobile, with 300 minutes a month for non-faves people, I can add on unlimited domestic messages for $15 a month. I hate to sound like Richie Rich, but I spent that on dinner for two at KFC, before I bought the drinks.
1. Someone post all telecom execs cell numbers.
2. Everyone SMS these execs to tell them the rates suck.
The reason you don't shoot a firearm in a plane is depressurization.
In either case, air marshals *do* carry firearms onto commercial planes.
There is a war going on for your mind.
They are letting the real problems slide in order to get re-elected more easily.
This sentiment is one of the few things that Ron Paul and Al Gore agree on in their recent mass-market books. Congress (and the federal government as a whole) have always been imperfect, but now they're even more useless than they've been for many decades. It's high time to start going to state legislatures to press for an amendment to the U.S. constitution on Congressional term limits. (Good luck getting an amendment started in the usual way by 2/3 majorities of the House and Senate).
The House is especially an issue, considering that they now can spend the majority their term preparing for re-election if their state's primary is in the early part of the year. However, the Senate has plenty of dinosaurs too. While I don't wish any ill will regarding his health on my state's senior senator, the fact that Ted Kennedy has been in office longer than the majority of his constituents have been alive (median age in Mass. is 37) is a farce. Strom Thurmond took office when racial segregation was a mainstream mindset in much of the country (late 1940's) and served until close to the end of the 20th century. Do you think someone who's in office for 30 or 40 years is going to continue to remain in touch with how the majority of his constiutents feel on fundamental issues, especially the younger ones? Changes in racial attitudes, for instance, were revolutionary during Thurmond's term.
After FDR, we decided that two terms for a president was enough. One nice corallary to that amendment is that a president only needs to worry about one election while in office; and since he's typically (though not always) unopposed by his party for the second term, he needs to do full-scale campaigning for only a few months of his presidency. Federal judges' life terms allow them focus on their cases rather than keeping themselves on the bench at the ballot box. I think it's time Congress needs to have the "I need to keep myself in office" mindset reduced significantly. Make the House of Representatives have four year terms, limit of two; the Senate should be limited to two six-year terms.
Maybe once we get some new blood circulating through Capitol Hill we'll see some production out of Congress. It's up to the states to make that happen. Maybe California can start things off with one of their ballot initiatives calling for a constituional convention on term limits?
In about a month I'll be jumping off the parent units' family plan and promptly forming a new family plan with the girlfriend. (jesus said it was okay)
When this happens, I'm going to trade up for a fancy iphone or blackberry curve or some such. At that point, all the people I care to type to on my phone will have a dataplan and I can just email them.
In an ideal world I could just be happy with that and make sure I never send a text message, but I don't want to get charged 20 cents every time one of my douchebag friends sends "omg did u see the bears game last night?" to everybody on their goddam contacts list.
What are the odds that a telco, specifically AT&T, will sell me a phone with SMS disabled so I never have to worry about being charged for this crap?
Three arms and a leg? Try an order of magnitude higher... according to this, it would cost about $24.5M to send just the 16GB of data via text messaging.
Sanity is like a condom: rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Indeed. I remember when SMS messages were free, and I paged my cellphone instead of having to carry a pager all the time.
It's working great for the post office... granted, sometimes FedEx or UPS are better choices, but they all use the same Roads (which are woefully falling apart).
They can because of current technical limitations. And I don't feel bad about it.
The problem is only voice packages get compared. Texts are in the periphery.
To fix this, I propose the following solution: we treat phones as a-la-carte services. That means your voice provider can be ATT, your data provider can be Verizon and your text provider T-Mobile.
This strategy would then provide the required market forces for bringing texting costs under control - namely competition.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
To be fair, it was billed as a "dogfight" and so he thought he could win by just shooting the dogs.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Amen.
One of the security managers for American Airlines come to one of our monthly safety meetings. He told the story of how a man attempted to hijack a flight and the passengers attacked and killed him. Whenever I hear the phrase "we live in a post-9/11 world" that's what I think of.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Not sure about swedish operators, but in finland, text remain the same price no matter where you are(ie. free if you have an unlimited plan).
The reason you pay for receiving calls in a foreign country is simply because the caller has no way of knowing where you are. The rule is that anything you cannot influence is uncharged. So receiving calls and messages inside the country is free.
The american texting system seems to me like the phone company saying: You are receiving a collect call, You will take the charges, if you want to or not. A bit backward I'd say.
Interesting and good points. I wouldn't say ours is backward as much as it is different. The US cell phone market evolved based on our market; much as the European one is the result of yours. We had far fewer regulatory / governmental hurdles to expanding across the entire US; unlike Europe with entrenched PTT's looking to protect their market. Our carriers consolidated to get economies of scale, which coupled with a relatively mobile population, gave rise to national carriers and the end of roaming and long-distance fees. It also gave rise to plans that essentially provide unlimited use for most subscribers - with "free" calling to anyone on my carrier and unlimited texting I'm never impacted by per call or per minute fees - even with business use and a relatively modest plan allowance.
Neither system (the US or European) is better per se - both have pluses and minuses but each is the product of the environment in which they sprung up.
If only we could combine the best of both...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
1) I'm not sure why people seem to believe the cost of producing a good should determine the selling price...
I do. In a healthy, competitive environment this situation would not occur for long. Competition would squeeze the ridiculous margins out (because anyone could still make great money by undercutting you).
The fact that this is not happening, and price is being determined by something other than cost to deliver and operate, suggests that consumers are being abused.
There's no real competition in the cell phone world. This plus the lack of any real differentiation in services highlights it clearly.
1) I'm not sure why people seem to believe the cost of producing a good should determine the selling price...
I do. In a healthy, competitive environment this situation would not occur for long. Competition would squeeze the ridiculous margins out (because anyone could still make great money by undercutting you).
The fact that this is not happening, and price is being determined by something other than cost to deliver and operate, suggests that consumers are being abused.
Actually, once you factor in the investment costs and return the margins are not all that great in the cell phone business. Hell, Google has a bigger margin - are they abusing consumers?
There's no real competition in the cell phone world. This plus the lack of any real differentiation in services highlights it clearly.
Actually, there is a lot of competition - from various pay as you go companies to marketters such as MetroPCS and Cricket to VIOP such as Skype - depending on your phone needs any number of servicies can meet them. You are not stuck with Sprint/ATT/Verizon.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
just use file compression before you send it, that will likely halve the amount of data and therefore cost.
Next!
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Mythbusters addressed this a while ago: http://mythbustersresults.com/episode10 Although, I wonder if the results would be different if the plane was in flight at 600 MPH -- somehow, I think that would make a difference, no?
I'm not sure that water is rightly categorized as an arm...
Quite right. Water is ammunition. Some surgical tubing and a swath of old jean material is the actual weapon, the water balloon is just the projectile.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
..when a network provider is also a higher-level-services provider.
If Verizon, T-Mobile, etc. just sold us bandwidth, and we had to get higher-level services from someone else, we would be better off. SMS would go away and we would switch to jabber. You get billed for a hundred bytes of I-don't-care-how-much-latency and that would be that.
It's the same situation as the cable ISPs. Using your IP service for VoIP or downloading video: they hate you. Using your IP service for web browsing and paying them extra for their VoIP and video: they love you. But in the second case, you're not really getting anything more (but you're sure paying more).
Likewise, the mobile carriers are delighted that we stupidly use SMS, instead of our own protocols running on top of IP.
FWIW, I think anyone should be free to sell us dumb things like SMS as expensively as we're willing to pay. BUT (and this is a big "but" because it nearly nullifies my previous sentence) any time we negotiate with them for a special favor that they want from us (such as an exclusive license to use a radio frequency band, or easements to run their cables over other people's property), then we should negotiate much, much harder. Don't just as for dollars. Demand that they be a neutral ISP without the inevitable conflict of interest that arises from selling other services that ride on top of that bandwidth.
That would solve this nonsense instantly.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
To examine your straw man a bit closer, who's arguing that bottled water keeps people safer by enabling them to kill people with the pull of a trigger?
I don't endorse the confiscation of bottled water, but to be fair I could kill a lot of people with a bottle of nitroglycerin which, to the passive observer, looks identical. Of course, a thin wooden dowel with 2" of rock candy at the tip and 6" of fulminated mercury stuck on below that would be equally effective and would probably pass security without notice unless they swiped/sniffed it.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
The cost of acquiring that extra arm goes up non-linearly, too.
The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
Some might, and I am envious of you. I got several spam texts a year ago, shortly after I signed on with T-Mobile. I called customer service and complained that I didn't think I should pay for them and that I would like to block them (all text messages). I was told that I could text "stop" as a reply to any unwanted messages, and that this "should" make them stop. So I pointed out that this would cost me even more money, and the CS agent agreed, and added that they could not block text messages. I was incredulous and hung up after telling her that as soon as my contract was up I would be switching carriers. Not a move to help me, refund or even apologize for the inconvenience.
obviously the public has plenty of motivation to maximize efficiency and public good. of course, this is predicated on there being a democratic government through which the public can exercise its will and protect/pursue its interests.
all arguments against such government-run public infrastructures typically regard bureaucratic issues which similarly plague any large commercial organization. but a private commercial organization answers to no-one but shareholders. whereas at least a government can be made to answer to its people.
You can, in fact take bottled water on commercial flights.
To do it, you need to take an empty bottle through airport security, and fill it up at the water fountain.
Of course, you could just buy a bottle of water at the concession stand, and then text your spouse, complaining about the ridiculous price of bottled water...
At 37,000 ft it would still make the air too thin to breathe after a short time.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Depends on how old she is, I guess.
Don't have to use your imagination on this one, it really happened: ...several Middle Eastern Looking Men rise from their seats and head for the front of the plane.
On the way, they kill a flight attendant that was standing in their way.
The unarmed passengers are unable to stop them.
The MELM eventually take over the plane and crash it into a large building.
Thousands die.
Thousands of children cry.
Feel Safer?
Just because you don't trust yourself with a gun does not mean that I, my brother, wife, father, son, daughter, ... cannot be trusted with ours.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Actually, with the presurization system efficiency, combined with the fact that it takes about 3 minutes to drop to a breathable height, it's really a non-issue. Even a blown out window, or complete loss of pressure is completely survivable, provided you don't get sucked out the hole in the first 0.3 seconds. Mythbusters did a bang up job proving that hole would not only have to be the size of a doorway, but also that significant explosive force needed to be added, increasing cabin pressure to several atmospheres beyond normal (the gases released in the explosion have to go somewhere).
Guns are not allowed on flights for the same reasons they're not allowed in most public and commercial buildings: They cause panic, and heighten anxiety. As it is, planes keep cabin preassure below normal on purpose, with the specific intent to calm passengers by slightly limiting oxygen intake. It's harmless to 99% of people, but is the main reason you're not supposed to get on a plane with a heart condition or if pregnant. The pressure system is completely capable of maintaining perfect pressure, preventing your ears from poping on take-off or landing. But to create a calmer atmosphere, they keep the pressure lower. Everything on an airplane is a measure of control, and 90% of it is completely pointless and has little or no safety impact. For most of the sheep in this country to make it 6-8 hours in a cramped space with strangers, we need to do everything possible to keep people from being nervous. Airline safety's purpose #1 is to convey this illusion above all else.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Interesting. I didn't know that. It's sad that sexuality, which I assume is what you're implying, should be such a factor but you're probably right. I'll look into that.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I couldn't agree with you more. I would like to think that out here in Oregon we send some pretty good folks to D.C. but Wisconsin has definitely got a pair of winners.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I'm lost in a thread about airplane security. Please text me to let me know how to escape...
Thanks,
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
The cost is not irrelevant. If consumers are willing to buy for $.1 and the providers are willing to sell for $.01, economics says the price should be between $.01 and $.1. But why should it be $.1 and not $.01? Why is it clamped at what the consumers are willing to pay and not what the providers are willing to sell for?
Actually, I thought it was because people won't switch their plan or carrier over the difference between 1c and 5c and 10c texting. If there was a free market for texting -- you could have one carrier for voice and another for texting -- I'd think prices would change very quickly.
The point is that having a gun doesn't deter crime, it causes it.
Imagine if your phone company charged you to receive a call on your cell phone!
Wait... in the US, they do. How quaint (from the viewpoint of most Europeans).
They should charge for calling a cell phone; receiving a call on one should be free.
Esli epei etot cumprenan, shris soa Sfaha.
Title says it all, really....
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
I do NOT think it is some "magic bullet" and I think McSame is full of crap(I'm voting Barr) but I am thinking big picture:every dollar we can keep from going to the middle east is a dollar that won't be used to fund people wanting to kill us. I figure it will take 10 years,that is why I also put the Kennedy style plan in there.
I know that it will in all likelihood take us more than 10 years to build truly affordable long range electric vehicles,and even longer to replace things like long haul trucks with electric. So we can spend our money on research into hybrid tech first,and use what we learn to increase the efficiency of the battery tech until we can go all electric. But as gas prices here just hit $5 on the panic surrounding Hurricane Ike it shows how desperately we need to take control of our future and minimize outside control of our destiny.
Can you imagine how screwed we would have been if we were in the shape we are now when WWII broke out? What happens if we have another? All our enemy would have to do is cut off our ties to the middle east and we would grind to a halt. We need to tell the big oil companies they have 12 months to begin exploring for oil in the federal lands they have leased or they will go to someone else. No more sitting on their butts. And we need to push at the same time for MUCH higher fuel economy standards on new cars and give tax breaks or other incentives for those that get rid of their older cars for a new fuel efficient one. Because IMHO we simply cannot afford to keep going down the path we are currently on. There are simply too many in the middle east who will take our money and use it to buy weapons to use against us. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Really. It's because of some postulated effect of hypoxia induced serenity. It's nothing to do with the strength of materials, or engine efficiency, or thermal control.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Touche... of course.