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."

Comments

Fascinating

[Ltap]

The best way to undermine a broken, corrupt system is to draw attention to the inconsistencies in its operation.

Re:Fascinating

[Monkeedude1212]

The best way to undermine a broken, corrupt system is to draw attention to the inconsistencies in its operation.

Funny! That's also how my first marriage ended!

Re:Fascinating

[timeOday]

Dilbert coined the term confusopoly for this: "a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price."

Obama advanced Elizabeth Warren for the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she has railed against this problem for years: "Today, the big banks churn out page after page of incomprehensible fine print to obscure the cost and risks of checking accounts, credit cards, mortgages and other financial products. The result is that consumers can't make direct product comparisons, markets aren't competitive, and costs are higher."

It's not hard to see the tie between confusopoly and the mortgage meltdown that wrecked the economy, either - and here I include not only under-educated sub-prime borrowers, but bankers creating and selling complex derivatives that were not well understood by ratings agencies, regulators, nor even the bankers themselves.

However, Republicans slammed the bill creating the CFPB as "a government takeover of the economy. The President and Democrats today gave financial regulators the power to create years worth of financial uncertainty, which will only lead to more struggling businesses and fewer jobs." Just as with the Credit Card Reform Act of 2009.

the interesting page is that one :

[godrik]

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

UK - setup

[ZERO1ZERO]

What gets me, is they are double creaming you. You Pay for a limited amount of megabytes AND only for a time period! So with 3G dongles for example, you pay say £10 or £20 or £50 for maybe 1GB, 5GB and 'unlimited GB' - but they cap you in that this is for '30 days'. So if you dont use up your allowance in the time period, then you are shortchanged, as you have paid for it. Some people operate it the opposite way - you buy an amount it entitles you to 24 hours, 2 days, 7 days or a month etc so If you want to perhaps check your emails or what not when you are on business for a few days, you have to either pay over the odds each day or buy morethan you need.

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

That's an easy one

[Minwee]

So why does the price of a 3G megabyte vary based on the device used to send or receive it?

Because you keep paying it. Next question?

Re:Profit!

[Monkeedude1212]

What happens when all the carriers get together and say "I think a Megabyte is worth a dollar more?"

Re:Profit!

[h4rr4r]

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.

Re:Profit!

[h4rr4r]

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.

Premist is flawed

[Mr. Freeman]

"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".

Re:Profit!

[j-beda]

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.

Re:Profit!

[puto]

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.