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The Odd Variations On 3G Per-Megabyte Pricing
GMGruman writes "Carriers are increasingly charging for 3G mobile access by the megabyte, to prevent 'unfair' subsidies of heavy users by everyone else. So why does the price of a 3G megabyte vary based on the device used to send or receive it? Why is an iPad megabyte cheaper than a MiFi one? After all, a megabyte is a megabyte as far as the network is concerned. InfoWorld has a comparison of 3G pricing for the four major US carriers for their various supported devices, so you can see whose 3G pricing is out of whack for which devices."
The best way to undermine a broken, corrupt system is to draw attention to the inconsistencies in its operation.
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Because they can, and we let them. They are in it for the money, and this is a way to maximize it. While one flat rate set based on actual network costs + profit would be the most logical, thats never going to happen. The marketroids do not understand logic.
that's the one that actually contain the table your are looking for.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobilize/the-strange-unpredictable-pricing-3g-data-plans-485?page=0,2
Transferring 1 1MiB chunk stresses the network a lot less than transferring 1024 1KiB chunks.
It makes sense to charge differently for devices with different usage patterns.
It's eerily similar to our patent laws, communication laws, and copyright laws.
Living With a Nerd
Can they not just charge you for WHAT YOU USE, WHEN YOU USE IT. It's fucking retarded.
In terms of PAYG mobiles they dont have these problems
Because you keep paying it. Next question?
What happens when all the carriers get together and say "I think a Megabyte is worth a dollar more?"
No, what we need is to standardize the technology used so customers can easily switch carriers, outlaw carrier locking of phones once the phone is paid for, and require carriers to sell transport to each other at reasonable rates. This would allow meaningful competition.
A megabyte is not equal to a megabyte, necessarily.
For instance, let's say I have a credit card processing server going across the same WAN link as web traffic ( for other workstations ). Obviously the web traffic is lower priority than the payment traffic.
As it applies to cell phones; maybe iphone users use their devices differently from other devices? Who knows, it's more likely cell phone companies bilking their customers ( as always ), but my point is that not all MBs are the same.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
You are welcome to try!
Supply and demand doesn't work when supply is constrained by the government and one sided contracts lock demand so that it can't chose another supplier if being taken advantage of.
Emphasis mine.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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I don't mind the contracts so much. You don't have to renew them when they're up (granted you'll be paying a monthly fee that's priced as if you had your phone subsidized.) And there are carriers out there that don't require any contracts at all, so you have options. What they really need to do is expand Wireless Local Number Portability. As it is, those of us who have moved out of our original Area Code are stuck with our carrier unless we want to go through the nightmare of changing our phone number.
Honestly, with more and more people ditching landlines and long distance calls becoming a thing of the past, I think we should get rid of region based area codes completely. Just give numbers to whoever wants them regardless of where they live.
So why haven't you done that yet?
I mean you'll make tons of money and the world will be a happier place.
Who the fuck do you think you are, telling companies how to run their business? You'll get a contract and an oligopoly and you'll like it!
Antitrust lawsuits start flying.
Sorry, you fail in your understanding of a free market system.
Any market where the exchange of some fungible good is restricted by artificial rules is not a free market. In this case bandwidth bought for device X cannot be transfered to device Y, or to person Z. This prevents price arbitrage and price discovery ensuring that the market price of the good remains under the control of the seller(s).
We don't need to tell companies what to charge. We need to tell them they don't get to set conditions to restrict the marketplace for their product! If I buy bandwidth I can use it however I want, with whatever device I want and I can resell it to whoever I want.
You have be brain washed into thinking that a consumer having a choice is the pinnacle of capitalism when that isn't even the most important of many necessary conditions.
In Germany a government body regulates the peering rates which recently moved from around 7c to around 3,4c a minute. Supposdly the rest of the E.U. charges similar rates. Does anything like that exist in the U.S.?
Then we demand that the gorram Feds enforce the relevant anti-trust laws on pain of lynching.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
In the article it states:
"Note that Sprint is the only carrier to offer tablet 3G service without requiring an ongoing commitment; you can start and stop whenever you want -- perfect for the occasional traveler."
But that is true of the iPad plan as well - you can start or stop whenever you like. The Samsung tablet does have that issue with Verizon, which has a fee for stopping service.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not in the least.
Our system is totally to the benefit of the wireless carriers. We even have GSM and CDMA carriers to ensure that phone portability is as limited as possible. The only major carrier that offers to unlock phones once they are paid for is one you probably have heard of, T-Mobile.
When comparing regulation between two Germany and the USA it is always like this.
You have be brain washed into thinking that a consumer having a choice is the pinnacle of capitalism
No, Mr. Knowitall, a free market is where those who are selling a good have equal access to the market place, ie: a level playing field in which to participate, like I said. /me thinks you spent too much time in college and not enough time actually owning and managing businesses.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
It is determined by supply and demand, what the market will bare, and what competitors are charging.
Yes, and articles like this do an excellent job of informing the customers, thus altering what the market will bare and altering the price. Although setting the price of a commodity (and any unit of data within a given carrier's network is identical, even if data service in general is not precisely so) based on who's buying it and for what purpose might increase profits for a while, but it hurts the brand image once customers start finding out - that's a big part of the free market too.
If we start getting into telling businesses what to charge, according to OUR ideas of what is fair, well, that isn't capitalism.
Enforcing it by law isn't capitalism, but I don't see anyone suggesting that. Demanding it as customers is entirely reasonable - the companies don't have to listen, of course, but then the customer can follow your advice and change carrier.
Supply: Cell network can support X Megabytes per second, at Y cost.
Demand: User asks for 1 Megabyte worth of data.
I don't see where what particular device I'm using to demand that data comes into play on the supply/demand curve. Maybe I'm missing it. The obvious exceptions would be if they are connecting to the network in different ways, LTE vs 3g for example.
If they lower their rates, then everyone is happy except the new guy, who goes out of business. If rates are raised again, someone else will try it, and down they come again.
If the new guy fixes prices, then he is vulnerable to the same issue - another new guy can undercut him severely.
Pricing is a raise to break-even. It's inescapable, without the influence of government.
Learn about Photography Basics.
and nothing of consequence happens from them..
the record industry got caught price fixing for a decade.. what happened? customers got leftover payola crap as a payout - and the they keep right on doing it.
the idea of free market means i should be able to come in and undercut them.. but MaBell is what you call too big to fight via startup.. and it doesn't help that even if you can fight them in the market place they are more than happy to get their in pocket politics to help their fight and make what ever you are doing wrong..
just take a look at Greenlight NC and the crap they are going through.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Now that's even more ridiculous. Once again pretty females probably get the best rate.
First they can go into a club when they don't meet dress code, and now they get a bigger discount depending on what they bare.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That's called collusion and it is illegal in the US and EU.
Which is entirely uncapitalistic I must say!
Part of the data plan's purpose is to subsidize the cost of the phone. That's why they won't let you buy a data-capable phone without the data service. There's no technical reason they can't, they just don't want you to get the discounted phone without paying them back for the discount.
The whole system is stupid. If cell phone providers sold cars, you would get the car for $50, but sign a multi-year agreement to buy gas from them at an inflated price.
Just out of interest, how does having an area code from one place affect your use of the phone in another? I know US mobile phones have geographic area codes (as opposed to the UK ones which have a specific '07' area code prefix signifying mobile) but I thought it was just for administrative convenience?
except the new guy, who goes out of business
And the banks and venture capitalists that fronted the money for this fool's errand.
If rates are raised again, someone else will try it
Good luck getting the banks and venture capitalists to front the money for the fool's errand the second time around.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
They're priced different because pricing isn't based solely on the cost to the supplier. Demand, competition, perceived value, price discrimination, etc... all influence the price as well.
I don't see where what particular device I'm using to demand that data comes into play on the supply/demand curve.
Yes, that is the problem, you don't see it. Demand isn't a two dimensional thing, nor is it calculated only by the MB. It is based upon the number of people wanting a very particular service vs. the ability of all the competition to provide it. It is modified further by raising prices on overages at whatever level they want to set, intentionally dampening demand to a level that is most profitable to serve. At that point, they adjust the supply to fit that demand.
Business is a lot more complicated than "I buy a widget for $1 and sell it for $2, I can spend $1 profit", particularly when you are talking about a cut throat multi-billion dollar industry that demands constant upgrading of equipment on a daily basis, and planning for the future with equipment that hasn't been invented yet.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
You have to get new service using a geographically local area code, and you can't port your number to a new carrier unless your number is geographically local to you.
You can use Google Voice to maintain carrier neutrality (mostly) but that comes with its own set of headaches.
Sorry, you fail in your understanding of a free market system.
You say that and then use terms that someone who fails in their understanding woudn't be familiar with?
I'm surprised the iPad plan isn't more expensive - anyone who can afford an iPad obviously has money to spare, while those on tighter budgets waited for cheaper tablets to become available.
"Carriers are increasingly charging for 3G mobile access by the megabyte, to prevent 'unfair' subsidies of heavy users by everyone else."
No, they're not charging more in order to make the network "fair" for everyone. They're charging more because they can get away with it because there are no real alternatives for anyone to switch to (especially with the 2-year contracts they're allowed to lock everyone into).
It's just that saying "We're charging more money because we're a company that's driven by making more money" doesn't go over as well as saying "We're charging more money to keep the network fair".
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Pricing is a raise to break-even. It's inescapable, without the influence of government.
And with the customer having perfect knowledge, and with all possible suppliers having equal access to capitol and no artificial barriers to entry into the market.
Of course with any finite system, without some form of regulation to prevent it, the entity with the control of the largest amount of capitol always "wins" in any multi-round commerce game. Once a monopoly grows, they can almost always maintain and expand it into other areas. If nobody else can raise enough money to build the towers, you cannot start a new cell phone company. And how can you convince a lender to lend to you if you plan on competing based on price against an already established player who can easily drop their prices until you go bankrupt? Yes, someone else could come along again to try to compete on price but they will have a tougher time finding a lender (the last lender lost their shirt remember?) and meanwhile the established player has more money than last time in order to temporarily "compete" with the newcomer.
Don't get me wrong - "artificial" intervention is very often harmful, but in my opinion is also very often necessary to provide the type of ecconomic environment we want to live in.
It's just like with Cable/DSL. The provider oversells their pipes and charges based upon making a profit from the average user. They take a slight loss on the people who use loads of bandwidth, but make it up in spades on just about everyone else. The cost you see on your phone bill (e.g. $25/mo for a 5GB plan) is based upon the expected usage of smartphones (way less than 5GB.)
Laptops are expected to use more of the provisioned data, so the companies would be taking a loss on most laptop plans if they were billed at the same rate as the smartphone data plans.
ATT has unlocked phones for years. All you had to do was well ask. I worked in tech support there until 2006 and we we used to process requests and send out unlock codes on daily basis. In 2009 I moved to south america, and called ATT and requested an unlock code for my Samsung Blackjack, and they sent it out to me in two days via email. And if you had an contract phone, and an account in good standing for at least 90 days, you could request and get an unlock code if you were going to travel abroad. The only phone you could not get an unlock code in recent history was the Iphone.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
This is about the only way I can see cellphones actually working as a free market. The market as it stands currently is broken.
Also A lot of the different pricing comes from recoup costs for subsidizing the smart phone and tablet costs. The just do the math as we need to make up X for each customer who uses a smart phone because we give out Y number of smartphones at Z loss. Z/Number of estimated users = the amount we need to jack up the price. Some items cause them to loose more money then others like the little USB modem may cause them to loose more money and thus creates a different price system. 1 megabyte is the same no matter what but what device you use puts you in a different group of people that cost them money. Comes down to there is no such thing as a free phone. You'll pay in the cost of service if you actually get a free one and cost others who didn't because they don't charge them less for not participating in the annual commitment scam they charge them more to "encourage" them to join the cult of "free"
Area codes are just a geographic grouping of numbers. Those are the first 3 numbers following the 1 on a long distance call. The next 3 after that are the exchange and the last 4 are just to make it unique. One of the issues we have is that you can't be sure if a call is going to be long distance by looking at it. Around here both 206 and 425 can be local calls or they can be long distance as well depending upon the specifics.
There used to be a rough grouping by exchange, that doesn't seem to be the case any more. Trying to make much sense out of the numbers is largely futile as it isn't particularly orderly and the numbers aren't handed out by any particular single party. In a sense it's worse now than it used to be now that we've got telephone number portability, allowing you to take a phone number from one company to another.
If we had to do it over there's a few things which we would probably do differently, one of them is assign area codes in a way that roughly corresponds in some predictable way to the part of the country they're listed in. As it is, the 205, 206 and 207 area codes represent parts Alabama, Washington and Maine respectively. It would be difficult to find much more spread geographically for sequential numbers.
and get an unlock code if you were going to travel abroad.
T-mobile does not require you to be leaving the country to let you use your owned property with another carrier. Why does traveling abroad enter into it?
Out of fairness I will say my current carrier is verizon, and I will most likely be leaving them soon as they seem unwilling to have any flashable android devices nor moblin/meego on their network.
A megabyte at the hour of peak usage is worth much more than a megabyte in the wee hours. So one reason to charge more for megabytes from USB modems is because they are more likely to be used during business hours than iPhones.
It would be better to make the network completely device agnostic and instead have time-of-day per-megabyte pricing tiers, but that would add complexity.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Comedy Central than on your so called newspaper/news show/news/broadcast. Suck to be you America...
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I don't know how this fits in, but Verizon's driods require the unlimited droid dataplans. You can't buy it without the droid data plan. It's unlimited for aproximately $40/month. no cap. phone only (tethering costs extra unless you use barnacle)
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
What we need is a highly regulated (electric & gas utility style) monopoly that runs the towers & backhaul. They will sell their minutes at a tarrif-regulated price, in bulk, to the resellers who actually provide dial tone, voice mail, customer service and whatever other bullshit data features they want to sell (VZW Apps, media, etc).
In some ways it'd be like Apple's iPhone and the app store relative to AT&T -- Apple is the reseller of those items, AT&T kind of just provides backhaul for the apps.
That was why I stated he had probably heard of it.
Thank you for adding nothing of value to the conversation.
If we start getting into telling businesses what to charge, according to OUR ideas of what is fair. Don't like your carrier? Change. That IS capitalism
Fixed it for you. I think you meant to say "if the government starts getting into telling businesses..."
We the people, on the other hand, ARE exactly one half of the capitalism equation.
The correct way to do it would be by using something like DNS. That way the number behind it all could change and no one would have to know about it
You must be kidding if you think that Rupert Murdoch (of Fox) isn't talking to Jef Zucker (of NBC) and Steve McPherson (who's now out so it might be Paul Lee) (of ABC) or Les Moonves (of CBS) and the rest of these media moguls when they get together in their conclaves in Aspen or Teluride or wherever the Hell they get together whenever the Hell they get together.
The phase "given a level playing field" shows a charming naiveté on you part which is astonishing given that you're posting on /.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
the record industry got caught price fixing for a decade.. what happened?
The internet happened, and now most music is "bought" for free. Again, the system isn't instantaneous, but just like karma, it tends to catch up with people.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
And now with "4G" speeds, you can effectively use up a 5Gb alotment in a month in just over 30 minutes. At least in theory.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Whatever you're smoking, it must be illegal.
You can't even get banks to venture a loan backed by assets.
Corporations are sitting on billions in cash which explains what the banks are doing with the money. NOTHING!
They're paying themselves more interest on the money on hand and less interest on the cash reserves than ever before.
We have the idiots at the Fed to blame for that.
Their policy of fractional percentage DECREASES in the cost of borrowing the Fed's money by the major banks means that it doesn't pay for them to lend it out at all.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I remember a while ago, when companies still offered unlimited internet plans... but they were throttling traffic. People made a big fuss about it.
Today, we see unlimited plans for internet and wireless are disappearing, overcharges are common...
The first thing to note of course is that a network (cell-phone or internet...) is not something to be characterized in such a simple manner as cost per MB. There is no cost per MB.
Costs for a network are basically the following
1. Infrastructure costs (routers, equipment, towers, license fees)... this is a fixed cost no matter how much traffic goes through.
2. peering costs. Most people are ignorant of this one... but the target location of your data actually matters. If your ISP is a small one, chances are they don't have a peering agreement with say ATT. So if the target location of your data is on the ATT network, your ISP might have to pay ATT transit charges.
Those are the only real 'costs' as it relates to the data itself.
Now how much traffic you can pipe through the system is a challenge... especially when it becomes congested. Just like almost any other network, it is not built for 100% of its users to be using 100% of their capacity 100% of the time. So you do face challenges 'managing' people's usage.
There are basically 2 ways to handle this. Note, these are totally arbitrary and need to be though of as separate from the real costs costs above.
1. Impose some artificial price to make users contain their usage. That is your per GB/MB charge. As this charge is not based on some true cost... it really is not a surprise that they impose different costs on different devices and plans... it is really just a deterrent to make you use less traffic.
2. Have the ISP 'manage' your usage. This is best known as throttling where companies would throttle the traffic of users. Maybe they slow down peer to peer traffic, or video traffic...
I am much more in favor of having ISPs manage their network rather than charging users directly. managing their network can actually produces a result people like. The ISP with the best management of its network for its users will win over more users. Users on poorly managed networks will complain that their video is slow or the p2p keeps dropping... They will switch to better managed networks.
There are of course problems with throttling... an ISP offerings its own phone service might start throttling VOIP service from competitors... Those are valid concerns of course. But that is nothing new. ISPs and wireless companies are monopolies to an extent and SHOULD always be investigated. Google is just being investigated by the EU for possible downgrading the links of its competitors.
My ideal throttling scheme goes like this.
You get unlimited usage. When congestion occurs, the ISP starts slowing down users based on their usage/plan. Want to be slowed down less... you purchase a more expensive 'GOLD' plan.
Now wireless is a bit different in that you actually need some kind of feedback between the cell phone provider and the cell phone. You can't just drop packets are the cell-phone provider level... the user will have already used the precious Over-the-air traffic before it is dropped. So for cell-phones they should have something where by the cell phone company can tell your phone to slow down its traffic. I don't know if this already exists BTW... I'm from the networking world, not the cell-phone world.
since both wireless and internet are somewhat monopolies... I really think the government should have a say in managing them. And quite frankly, forcing them to manage their own networks and stop these charges would be a welcome change.
It is not like a having a phone where you have to actively initiate a call... or actively make a long distance call. You know you are being charged and its a focussed activity. People really don't have the kind of immediate feedback as it relates to managing their internet / cell phone data use.T
If we had it to do all over again with today's technology.
Area codes (and prefixes) were allocated based upon population and with respect to rotary phones and mechanical switching equipment. Areas with high population got area codes with the most small numbers (except for 0) because on a rotary dial phone, shorter numbers means that the call can be connected more quickly. Connecting a call more quickly means that the switching equipment is tied up for less time. That is why 0 wasn't used as much--it's the last number on the rotary dial, and thus takes the longest to use. And since high-population areas are expected to be called more frequently, it made a great deal of sense to minimize the connection time to these places.
You're assuming two things:
1. That (300 million Americans) want or need information in their news, and
2. We can't afford to just wait for our international brethren to inform us we talk like fags and our shit is all retarded.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
It might be illegal if you can prove it, but I'm sure that the heads of the corporations don't scribble it down or send it through email.
The amount of corporate espionage which occurs in any country is only partly funded by a desire to get the goods on the competition.
The rest is funded by a desire to maintain a profitable equality in pricing.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The assumption, as best I can tell, is the same that drives carriers to charge $20/mo tethering fees for using smartphone data plans with a laptop. Basically, they don't expect you to use very much of your monthly plan.
The ipad+mifi deal from Verizon is another good example. If you want just a mifi (for, say, a laptop or an existing ipad), you pay $260 + $40/mo (contract) for 250MB or $60/mo for 5GB. If you buy it with an ipad, you pay only $130 for the mifi device and get the option to buy month-to-month $20 for 1GB, $30 for 3 GB or $50 for 5 GB. With the right usage pattern it wouldn't take long for the ipad to pay for itself.
Frankly, dedicated computer links (via USB or wireless) tend to have pretty lousy rates. Why? Because the carriers know these tend to be business customers (who have their companies pay for it) and they also tend to use more of their service than many smartphone users.
That said, provided they have the coverage you want, there are good alternatives to the standard ATT/Verizon choices. Virgin Mobile sells a mifi for $200 from Walmart with a $20/mo prepaid 1GB plan (if you buy direct from VM, it's cheaper but you only have the choice between $10/100MB or $40/unlimited). It uses Sprint's network (actually, Sprint bought Virgin Mobile USA last year).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
The iPad (with 3G) is pretty expensive. $630 minimum (but no contract on the data.) The Tab is only slightly less without a contract, but is sold subsidized for, what, about $400? Of course, forcing the data plan on you (and they are expensive) means that it's probably quite a bit more expensive in the long run.
Frankly, I think that Apple saw a new market that they could outright create, and they jumped at it. They own the tablet market right now because they did it first, they did it well, and they started with something familiar. Other companies had tried tablets before, but they didn't get all three of those right.
As for price, lots of people complained about the iPad pricing at first. There were claims that Apple had priced themselves way too high and that no significant number of iPads would be sold. Of course, those were vastly incorrect predictions, and what we're seeing now is that no one else can compete at the same price. They all have to take shortcuts somewhere.
That said, I'd argue that anyone who can buy a tablet has money to spare. They're still all toys right now. The only two that offer any reasonable performance are the Tab and the iPad, and they're still both pretty much consume-only devices. Yeah, John Gruber likes to point out that people are creating with the tablets--and that's certainly true--but the way most people create on most computing devices is by typing, and that's still far and away a better experience on a computer.
However, according to the cult of the market, the "Invisible Hand" is supposed to push the retail cost down to the cost of production.
That tells us that the telecoms market is quite unhealthy in the U.S. OR that the theory of markets is wrong.
The problem has been around for as long as phones could actually use data and shows no signs of correction. If the market can't correct any faster than that, it's worthless.
This is more evidence that our carriers are , in fact, a confusopoly.
parent didn't read/understand GP.
but MaBell is what you call too big to fight via startup..
Um, you might want to re-think your example. Not only is she one of the few examples of anti-trust action actually having a major impact on a huge corporation in US history, her entire profit-model prior to 1984 was ripped to shreds by MCI.
Further, it's one of the *very* few examples of government-intervention having a solid, clear benefit to consumers in all of history. I wouldn't be typing this post on the modern internet and people would definitely not be reading it on their smartphones without that case.
If they get together and do that, it's price fixing, and can cost them tens of millions of dollars in fines, and possibly jail time (not likely though). Proving such a thing is difficult, but it has happened before.
However, if there is not enough competition it is fairly easy to come to unspoken agreements on price.
For example*, if there are only two gas stations in town and the price of oil drops, each gas station owner has two options: drop the price of their gas in order to drive more customers to their station and steal customers from his competitor, or he can sit on his current price and wait until his competitor makes a move to lower the price.
If both station owners do the latter, chances are they both make more money than if either of them moved first. They both see the benefits of this, so neither drops the price. They didn't have to get together to agree on a price, they managed to do it without saying a word.
This doesn't usually work with three or four competitors. In that case it isn't a 50/50 split, and it is possible for the first station owner to drop his prices to double or more his number of customers by doing so. That's a very lucrative possibility, and someone always jumps on it (the more competition the quicker it happens). This is the essence of how fair competition seeks the lowest possible price for a given good or service.
In the case of cell phones, you have basically 4 competitors nation wide, and their operating areas don't overlap by more than two competitors in most areas. For large metropolitan areas this isn't the case, but in most non-metropolitan (and even in a number of metropolitan areas) there are only two competitors. Large metropolitan areas tend to have the most competitive plans, too.
This means the pricing takes a long time to get to where it should be, and in some cases it never gets all the way there.
*This example assumes the gas stations in question get most of their money from gas. In reality this is rarely the case, but it's an analogy, deal with it.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I have "unlimited" data service on my android phone, so after a damn simple rooting I now have wifi tethering for devices to the phones 4G network. This let me get rid of my clear.com service for my laptop ($45 a month), and avoid buying another data service for my ipad.
It may be a breach of service contract, but I'll be goddamned if I'm going to buy 4 completely different internet data services, when one is all I need at any given time (except I really do need two as the one at home has to be up all the time).
Unfortunately your idealism of supply and demand changes dramatically under your typical duopoly / oligopoly telecoms markets. The supply and demand curve picks one price point, however when all carriers equally overchage a new line is drawn to the left of the curve. The supply price and demand price as a result have a wild disconnect that only a true free market or heavy price regulation can bring back to it's equilibrium. This is something that can't ever change by itself due to incredible barriers of entry into the industry. You can't go out tomorrow and say I'm going to build a telecom network to compete with AT&T. You don't have the resources. As such even if you completely eliminate contracts the market place can't be open on account of the ludicrous cost of entering the marketplace.
So tell me, my contract just expired so I'm free to choose, which off the carriers in TFA have equal pricing for both 3G mobile and 3G internet? If your answer was none, then hopefully you start to see my point.
How much is a G again? Or rather, 3G?
I agree and take it one step further. Why, oh why, aren't cell phone companies required to unlock the phones? Such as, if I pay Verizon outright for a BlackBerry Storm, why aren't they required to unlock the SIM so I can use whatever SIM I want? As is, you have to call the business support number and tell them you're heading over seas and are being given a prepaid SIM card, and then if they buy that they'll check your past credit with them and how long you've had them.
I understand for phones purchased at a discount with a 1 or 2 year contract, but why aren't they required to unlock the phone AFTER the contract is up and they've made back the full price of the phone and then some? That's why I like Immix Wireless. Even though they are small, and only cover a few counties in Pennsylvania (they have roaming agreements with ATT, T-Mobile and others) their phones come unlocked even with doing a 2 year agreement. I think all carriers should do that or at least be forced to unlock them after your contract is up.
silly question? Why have you marked me as a foe?
Probably the worst example of these sort of ridiculously unfair pricing schemes is text messaging. Remember when text messages first came out in the US, and they were only 5 cents per msg? Over the five years or so following that, their price inched all the way up to where it is now, 25 cents per msg I think (or is it 20?). Either way a 400%+ increase in price, despite the fact that most networks can handle more traffic now than they could back then.
The obvious cause for this is lack of competition. There's simply no incentive for the few companies holding down the monopoly on cell services to charge any less for text messaging.
It's frustrating that our govt either can't or won't do anything to open up the market to more competition.
I'm confused. This is a solved problem already. You go to the new carrier and say "Hi, I'd like to open a new account and keep my current number" and they make that happen. In fact, I just did this a few months ago when combining wireless accounts with my wife. I kept my Maryland number and she kept her Oregon number and I was the one who changed carriers. You can keep your current number, even when crossing geos and changing carriers. I think they did at one point pitch a fit about this, but no longer.
Now, landing thrusters.. landing thrusters, hmm. Now if I were a landing thruster, which one of these would I be?
All the carriers get together
In my area, that would be Verizon teaming with uh...Verizon. We better keep those two apart.
To be fair AT&T is around, but their coverage sucks.
What happens when all the carriers get together and say "I think a Megabyte is worth a dollar more?"
Where there are no monopolies or restrictions on competition and new players see an opportunity they will enter the market with lower prices.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I post this only because so many "oh my, isn't mobile so fucked up" rants are tied specifically to US-specific things.
How much does it cost to emigrate, and which country do you recommend?
Good to know that's been addressed. As recent as January of 2008, I know first-hand of a telco who refused to port.
the entity with the control of the largest amount of capitol always "wins" in any multi-round commerce game.
I assume you meant "capital", but "Capitol" is an apt Freudian slip given that once you have enough capital, you can buy legislators.
Tell everyone who wants a smart phone they MUST get the $30 unlimited data plan. Then tell the customer they get a "discount" for specific increments under a particular amount of data. Like say for if the customer uses between 1 and 2 GB per month they get "$10 off" the bill, between 500Megs and 1 GB "$15 off" and if they use less then 500Megs then "$20 off". So the customer thinks they're saving money by using less data and the carrier's networks are that much less saturated. Essentially you would be giving smart phone users a financial incentive to switch to wifi for things like downloading games and listening to Pandora.
This idea just came out of my frustration of using less than 500Megs a month yet being charged the same $30/month as if I used 5GB+. I would like to be charged less for my minimal amount of data usage. But I guess that's just me.
"UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
However, according to the cult of the market, the "Invisible Hand" is supposed to push the retail cost down to the cost of production.
That tells us that the telecoms market is quite unhealthy in the U.S. OR that the theory of markets is wrong.
There is no free market when there is government interference in said markets. And there is most definitely government interference in these markets.
The problem has been around for as long as phones could actually use data and shows no signs of correction. If the market can't correct any faster than that, it's worthless.
You're right, it's been around as long as phones have been and the problems will continue until the government stops interfering. Yes, interfering. First government gave monopolies to land-line companies like ATT and to mass media broadcasters like Fox and Clear Channel. I know, I know, Fox and Clear Channel are relatively new at broadcasting.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Anarchy it is then!
The article lists T-Mobile as having an "unlimited" plan for $30, but in reality it's more like "If you go above 5GB, we'll cap your bandwidth down to EDGE speeds until the end of the month." They also just recently added a tethering plan for I believe an extra $15 or so a month, which would put that 5GB+ at around $45 ($35-40 if you have a loyalty plan) with tethering. Of course, people have figured out other ways to tether on at least some of their devices....
fencepost
just a little off
I don't know about porting to a new carrier, but AT&T's service is nationwide, and they don't care if your area code matches your billing address once you're signed up. My cell number has a Utah area code, and I live in Washington. I've upgraded my phone twice (with contract renewal) twice since I moved to Washington, the first of which I did while on vacation back in Utah (with my billing address long switched to Washington).
The only annoyance is that Washington locals won't want to call me from their land lines because it's long distance, but most everyone has a cell phone with free nationwide long distance nowadays.
It also has a $10-for-100MB no-commitment option for a one-day trip -- it's cheaper than paying for hotel and airport Wi-Fi.
While of course very few airports (and almost none of any importance) have free WiFi, most hotels do. In fact, I often use it as a selection criteria when choosing which hotel to stay at. I can't recall off the top of my head the last time that I stayed at a hotel that did not have free WiFi (although I have stayed at a few that had rather lousy free WiFi).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It doesn't really affect anything other than land line use. Calling another area code usually results in higher "long distance" charges. Currently there is no long distance charges for cell phones. As an example, say you move from one corner of the country to the other. You keep your mobile phone number so it still has the area code from where your family and friends are. They can call you on the land line all they want and they won't incur long distance charges even though you are 2000 miles away. On the other hand, when your new friends there try to call you from the land line, they will have to pay long distance. No problem if they call on a mobile.
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Hippie Logger Jock
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Which government interference would you say is the problem? What should the government stop doing to improve the market?
In theory, the FTC would come down on them hard for price fixing.
In practice, a few regulators would be paid off to look the other way.
If the government doesn't regulate the market, a monopoly will dominate it.
What the geeks here don't understand: When you buy "up to 3 GB per month", as an example, you do not pay for 3 GB. You pay for the average usage of all users of that plan. If owners of device A on a 3 GB plan use 2 GB on average, and owners of device B use 1 GB on average, then the same "up to 3 GB" can be sold a lot cheaper to owners of device B.
3g is wireless, and wireless varies on cost depending on coverage. A 5mb connection with nearly seamless nationwide coverage can't cost the same to maintain as a 5mb connection that has spotty intermittent coverage, and that cost has to be passed on. What you suggest is that a speed limited rolls royce should cost the same as a same-speed limited honda civic.
stuff |
what the market will bare
I wasn't going go all grammar Nazi, but since this was repeated, I figured I would. The word is "bear", as in I can't bear any more naked markets
Yeah, I meant that. Really. OK, no.
I'm surprised the iPad plan isn't more expensive - anyone who can afford an iPad obviously has money to spare, while those on tighter budgets waited for cheaper tablets to become available.
On the contrary; anyone who can afford an iPad probably has a well-paying job that they didn't get for being stupid. Or is really looking after his or her money and not wasting it on useless stuff, which is why they can afford an iPad. That kind of person doesn't waste their money on an overly expensive contract. You seem to be in that lower middle part of the IQ distribution where you think you have to be stupid to buy a product that is easy to use. Other people realise that buying a product that is easy to use is actually clever.
And get shouted down by the libertarians. You want the government medalling in the holy free market? Are you some kind of communist? Remember the libertarian mantra: It is the sole prerogative of corporations, and not government, to exploit the people.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The only way that I can see it making a difference is in terms of usage patterns. People using a laptop for tethering will be more likely to use the laptop for a relatively short period, but will use more bandwidth over this time. In contrast, people with a smartphone will use less bandwidth, but for more time. It's probably slightly easier to correctly provision the smartphone users, because their usage patterns are more predictable. Of course, as smartphones become more capable, this is less true. Now that phones can do things like play back GooTube videos, they can be responsible for the same sort of bursty usage as tethered laptops.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Um, in my area there are a few small cellular options doing it fairly successfully, even getting a reputation of service that's spotty, but pretty damned good.
Metro PCS charges $50/month for unlimited voice and data, 3G, on a smartphone ($40 on a dumb one).
Additionally they have plans with unlimited calls to Mexico for $5 extra on the $50 plan, and $10 for unlimited international.
All with affordable phones, and no contracts.
Cricket is $55/month for the unlimited Android plan, affordable phones, not sure about contracts. (also hear less about there service, but my neighbor used a USB from them for internet and it was decent, and cheaper than cable. They throttle speed, don't charge you when you surpass the allotment.
These are pretty big steps and it kind-of reminds me of when T-Mobile came to my area (pretty good coverage, but not the best, 30% less than the competition, which T-mobile remains from what I can tell with $100 unlimited everything plans vs AT&T or Verizon $150). It's just T-mobile has grown, and now there's a new OK, not great coverage companies moving in at 30% less than them.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Without government, there can be no corporations. It's not like they get their corporate charters and their protection from liability out of a Cracker Jack box.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
It would make more sense to have a common stack and frequency bands for many reasons, but the lack of it hardly explains the complete failure of the market here.
I believe the contracts are also regulated in the sense that an operator can't discriminate terminals by requiring one sort of unlocked terminal to require more expensive contract than another, unless the consumer specifically wants one.
I fully agree. So, more regulation (and more sensible) rather than less.
the first time i fully agree.. but the current 2nd coming of MaBell that we are watching is what was talking about.. sorry if i wasn't clear about that.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
What, you expect more consistency out of Libertarian political dogma than the other bullet-point driven ideologies?
(I do find it so amusing when they forget that little factoid, though...)
Which government interference would you say is the problem?
The granting of monopolies for one.
What should the government stop doing to improve the market?
Stop granting monopolies! Get rid of monopolies altogether. Get rid of licensing too.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm an anarcho-capitalist. It would be silly of me to not know that corporations are legal constructs that date back to mercantilist Britain and beyond.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Yeah, good think we would never elect nincompoops to public office, eh?
That's called collusion and it is illegal in the US and EU.
Well, here in the US, such laws are considered "government regulation", and both the major political parties are now run by people who don't believe in enforcing such things. They do like to keep such things on the books, so that they can use the above argument, trusting that most of the population will fail to distinguish having a law and enforcing the law.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It is determined by supply and demand, what the market will bare, ...
I was thinking that it's only a matter of time before someone introduced porn into this discussion.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I can't say whether or not AT&T unlocks phones, I'll take your word for it. But when Alltel was bought out by Verizon, FTC blocked it in my area as anti-competitive (Southern NM). AT&T bought them out here. I go to switch my account to Verizon, and they won't let me use my old CDMA phone because it has an Alltel label. They won't reflash it. So I had to buy new phones, which of course then had to be reprogrammed with our address books. And no, they don't transfer phone books between models, which Alltel would do.
Unless all carriers unlock phones that are compatible, it doesn't do much good.
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
"Silly" seems to be the theme for every contemporary political movement.
Sincere question: What exactly IS an anarcho-capitalism, and how does it differ from Randroid "Libertarianism"?
Aside from the fact that unlike anarchocapitalists, Randroids and Libertarians are minarchists who favor a "night watchman" government that does nothing but enforce contracts, crack down on property crimes (murder, rape, theft, robbery, fraud, trespassing, etc.), and fend off invasions from other countries?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
And anarchocapitalists favor the complete absence of government? (I'm guessing, since you didn't say).
Anarcho-capitalists are basically anarchists who like money and all the fun things money can buy, like hookers and blow. I'm surprised you didn't infer that from the "anarcho-" prefix.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
If you look again, I actually did, I was just verifying my assumptions.
I'm not sure how you/they propose that such a system doesn't rapidly devolve into another feudalism, though.
Call me cynical, but I don't think we've gotten away from feudalism in the first place. The basic social contract is still obedience to authority in exchange for the illusion of security. Citizens/subjects of a country are stuck in the country of their birth unless they are rich or have skills that the governments of another country want. Without the right to freely emigrate, you and I are still serfs. The politicians and their financial backers are our new aristocracy.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
No argument here. So then what's the difference?
I also need something that has coverage through at least the five states I usually travel through; no insane roaming rates for leaving those five states; and consistent, quality service.
Actually In think that's pretty easy to handle, it's done now and has been done since land-line phones were installed. I am company A in your state and I make an agreement with cellphone service providers in the states that surround me so that when you are in their coverage area they relay your calls. Now I may cover their costs, or I can charge you a roaming charge then pass it along to them. If the traffic is pretty much equal, I would relay calls for their customers as much as they relay my customers' calls then we could say one cancels the other, much like Interconnect or peering agreements work on the net.
I can't see a startup offering that any time soon
The higher the demand the faster it would happen. Just 15 years ago how many people would have believed we'd have always connected faster than 56k baud internet connections today? I stopped paying for by the minute connections more than 10n years ago.
unfortunately, we don't have a free market... nor is there any chance of fewer regulations coming along...
Unfortunately I agree with you, there is no free market and the odds of there being one in the next decade are less than slim, and none. Actually I aspect more regulations not less, which as long as they are about net neutrality it's okay. But if they make monopolies more powerful then it is not okay.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?