217,000 Text Messages In a Month

AlHunt writes "Two central Pennsylvania friends spent most of March in a text-messaging record attempt — for a total of 217,000. For one of the two, that meant an inches-thick itemized bill for $26,000. Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were relying on their unlimited text messaging plans to get them through the escapade, so Andes didn't expect such a big bill. 'It came in a box that cost $27.55 to send to me,' Andes said. After a 'panicked' call, Andes says his cell phone company assures him he won't have to pay it."

Comments

some math

[story645]

217,000/31 = 7000 a day
(217 000 / 31) / 24 = 291.666667 an hour
((217 000 / 31) / 24) / 60 = 4.86111111 a minute

And I assume they slept/ate/etc. so amazed that they managed to find the time for this

Re:some math

[DexPleiadian]

you forgot *(your end result)/ 2*. it is 217,000 texts between 2 people.

from the article:
"Andes says he sent more than 140,000 messages and Klinger sent more than 70,000 for their total of just over 217,000"

so, in reality, your math is completely wrong.

i am guessing that many of the texts were simple one or 2 word replies, which take little to no time at all to punch out if you know your phone well enough. there is also the chance that they just resent previously created messages and saved "quick" texts. you chunk a bunch of short small texts into a few hours and you can find time for other things. as for the sleeping... maybe they have some sort of auto-reply enabled.

Re:some math

[story645]

so, in reality, your math is completely wrong.

I never said I was calculating for one person. I was just looking at the time spent, and for that the math is fine. I'm making the giant assumption that the didn't send texts at the exact same time. But fine, new math:

140 000 / 31 = 4516.12903 day
((140000 / 31) / 24) = 188.172043 hour
((140000 / 31) / 24) / 60 = 3.13620072 minute

for approximately one text every 20 seconds-which is a really small amount of time even for a one word text. And he'd have to be even faster 'cause he's probably not texting at all times.

The lower values are a bit more sane:
70 000 / 31 = 2 258.06452 day
(70 000 / 31) / 24 = 94.0860215 hour
((70 000 / 31) / 24) / 60 = 1.56810036 minute

Cost Increases??

[the1337g33k]

that is truly amazing. Thats like one message every 12.5 seconds, im surprised their phones didn't crash or the keys didn't wear out, break or the battery died... They truly have a lot of time on their hands.

why bother

[CreamyG31337]

why does the phone company even send out the bill in this case? obviously, nobody would ever pay it... this reminds me of the guy that got a $60,000 bill for downloading a movie while in mexico. these companies need to learn to call their customers when their bill reaches, say, $1000

Not a Record

[muphin]

"the largest monthly text message total he could find online, 182,000 sent in 2005 by a man in India", technically he only sent 140,000