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Wrong Number: Why Phone Companies Overcharge For Data
MrSeb writes "A recent study (PDF) conducted by UCLA professor Chunyi Peng shows that carriers generally count data usage correctly, but those customers who commonly use their device in areas with weak signal strength or to stream audio or video are often overcharged. Peng and three other researchers used data gleaned from an app installed on Android smartphones on two different carriers. The issue appears to be in how the system is set up to count data usage. Under the current scenario, data is charged as it is sent from the carrier's network to the end user. What does not exist is a system to confirm whether the packets are received, and thus preventing charges for unreceived data. Peng demonstrated this in two extreme circumstances. In one case, 450 megabytes of data was charged to an account where not a single bit of it had been received. On the flipside, Peng's group was able to construct an app which disguised data transfers as DNS requests, which are not counted by the carriers as data usage. Here they were able to transfer 200 megabytes of data without being charged. Overall, the average overcharge is about 5-7% for most users. While that does not seem like much, with unlimited plans gone and data caps in style that could pose potential problems for some heavy data users. Could you be going over your data allotment based on data you never received? It's quite possible."
DNS requests, which are not counted by the carriers as data usage.
I'd love to see a source for this.
Well, a source to anything actually, but it seems to much to ask around here these days...
Well I sent a check for my monthly bill... not my fault you didn't receive it.
Here's the paper: http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~chunyip/publications/mobicom12-peng-accounting.pdf
Build better ones.
I guess that means the operators will shortly release an update for the phone OS's to also charge for the data the phone sent but wasn't received by the operator.
1. write an app that disguises streaming porn as a DNS request
2. ???
3. Profit!
So considering the nature of wireless and TCP/IP, how would one determine if the data didn't get through from the viewpoint of the wireless Carrier?
Why do dogs lick their balls?
Resending a packet due to a missed ACK takes up air time, just like it did sending it the first time, and the carriers have no control on where the user will be. If they make their systems robust enough to move their present average packet reception rate from an already-good 93-95% to, say, 99%, this will only enable their users to move down another floor in their sub-basements, or another few city blocks, or another cubicle row deeper into the building, before the average goes back down again -- after all, wireless systems have limited range. The cost of the new infrastructure would be roughly twice that of the previous one ("increasing coverage is increasingly expensive"), and you're going to pay for the cost of the infrastructure either way in your air-time charges.
Look at it this way: Even if the company only charged for packets successfully received, it would just increase their rates by (1/0.95) - 1 = 5.3% to (1/0.93) - 1 = 7.5% to maintain the same cash flow. Plus it would have to start keeping track of the success or failure of each packet transmitted, and put that into its billing scheme. That's a database PITA I don't want, thank you very much.
Data takes up network capacity whether the device receives it or not.
* Android Droidstats usage logger: 369 MB (2012-07-31 22:16h)
* Android "My Data Manager": 337 MB (2012-07-31 22:16h)
* Vodafone online usage monitor: 307 MB (up to 2012-07-30 17:46h)
* Phone bill for July: 343 MB (since a couple of months they actually mention the total; before I needed to use a perl script to parse the PDF invoice and add the data usage of some 200 separate data sessions)
When I asked about the differences a few months ago, the Vodafone customer service told me: "The information on your Vodafone account online is the real usage. Numbers from data usage apps are not reliable." But I highly doubt that I used 36 MB over the last day of the month, so it seems that within Vodafone they have different systems.
My train commute (where I use most of my data) passes through an area with bad coverage, so I would have expected a bigger difference based on the theory that packet loss accounts for most of the difference.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
"Overcharged". What a sweet word to use instead of other words like fraudulently charged or stolen. No, you were simply "overcharged". Don't worry about it. And your bill is due by the 1st.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I've had it happen in the past, where I've blocked all data usage on the phone, requiring a password, which i had forgotten what it was. But month after month i would get charged about 50 cents worth of data. That was years ago.
I've been keep tracking of our cell phone usage, since my mother got an iphone, she has only used 50 Mb of data per month, maxing out at 80 Mb once.. Last month we got a notification that she was nearing hitting her 200 Mb cap. When the bill came, she was at 189 Mb. We were extremely surprised at this, We looked at the iphone data usage screen, since we have never cleared it since we got the phone, we added up what we have been charged in the past, and lo and behold, the difference was only ~57 Mb.. So this could explain why at&t was charging us the extra 140Mb that the phone says that we never used.
Now my secret DNS-routing will be counted!
But really, I found something similar out with the 3 broadband service a while back when it first started.
Turned out if I embedded an iframe in one of their pages with a very simple javascript injection, I could access external resources without even having a connection and it wasn't charged to the account.
I never abused it if you are thinking that. I only used it in emergencies. I did and still do pay every so often whenever I need a connection.
It got fixed a while back anyway. I think someone else must have actually abused it.
Overages are a real concern though.
I like the way TalkTalk in the UK handle it at present with their broadband package. You get 40gigs for the basic package. If you go over that, automatically it is only an extra £5 for another 40gigs instead of some £x per YYYbs thing.
However with a metered system with low allotments such as mobiles, I think the best and fairest way would be to scale the overages up with time.
So the first small accidental overage will be really low, then the next a little higher, etc.
This way a person will likely be notified of the overage before it gets out of hand.
Of course, they don't care about your happiness to that level. They WANT your money. The more, the better.
Until one of those companies have the balls to take the plunge, nobody will because it is essentially free money.
Because they overcharge for everything. Why would data be any different?
Do you really think what carriers charge is how much it actually costs to send a text message?
The telco can only rely on the data from their own equipment, that is they know the data was transmitted to the user but have no way to reliably tell if it was received.
If they were to ask the user's device, then the device could lie in an attempt to get free use...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
>"While that does not seem like much, with unlimited plans gone and data caps in style that could pose potential problems for some heavy data users."
I guess the author never heard of Sprint, which has unlimited plans and without data caps or throttling.
Perhaps the statement was out of context, I don't know. But it is misleading.
Don't get so hung up on the UPS Service Guarantee (section 47, pdf page 32, paper page 29):
In the event UPS fails to attempt delivery within the time published on the UPS website, or as provided when 1-800-PICK-UPS® is called, UPS, at its option, will either credit or refund the transportation charges for each such package to the payer only, upon request, provided the conditions set forth in the UPS Service Guarantee are met. Transportation charges do not include other fees or charges that may be assessed by UPS including, but not limited to, fuel surcharges. This is the sole remedy available under the UPS Service Guarantee.
UPS shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever for delayed delivery, except as specifically provided for shipments made under the UPS Service Guarantee. Under no circumstances shall UPS be liable for any special, incidental, or consequential damages including, but not limited to, damages arising from delayed delivery or failure to attempt on-schedule delivery.
UPS may cancel or suspend the UPS Service Guarantee for any service(s), and for any period of time, as determined by UPS in its sole discretion, and without prior notice.[Emphasis added.]
What follows (in Section 47.1) is seven bullets of conditions, followed (in Section 47.2) by eleven bullets of exclusions.
I don't have a problem with UPS -- they've always treated me, and my packages, well -- but I'm not under any illusions that I could actually get a court judgement from them based on their terms of service, should they decide not to refund their shipping charges on a lost parcel, and I decided to sue. Any service guarantee that may be canceled by the service provider, at its sole discretion and without prior notice, isn't very reassuring.
Surely this means that network operators have no incentive to increase their coverage?
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
That sounds like a combination of MA protocol headers ("traffic meters" on phones/tablets only count payload sizes, not including header sizes because they're usually gone before they get to the Sockets layer) and the old "we charge 1 megabyte at 1,000,000 bytes" bullshit some ISPs inherited from the mass storage market.
http://code.kryo.se/iodine/
I've played with IP over DNS, and it works surprisingly well. It can break through most firewalls. I think there was something like a 50% performance hit, but considering how convoluted it is, that's pretty good.
It shouldn't be difficult to port it to Android if you install a kernel with tun/tap support.
It's only gone from the big carriers. I use Metro PCS, and have 4G in the city where I live, along the major route I commute to Atlanta, and of course have it in Atlanta itself. (The trade off is having text-only outside of the network.) If you live in a rural area and need one of the big guys to provide coverage, you're screwed, but if you live in a metro area, you'll probably get a better deal with a smaller regional carrier.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
All I need to do is run a website or service on UDP/53 and mobile users wont ever get charged? It can't be that easy.
The article makes the assumption that people should only be charged for packets actually received. But the company's wireless infrastructure is busy while it is transmitting packets, whether received or not. Bandwidth could be entirely saturated even if no client ever receives anything.
It seems to me that people should pay the way they are, and if they don't like paying for dropped packets, they should turn off data when in marginal areas. Of course, coverage should also be measured that way: if you are in an area in which you receive less than, say, 95% of the data packets, that should be counted as "no coverage".
Why Phone Companies Overcharge For Data
Shouldn't that read "How Phone Companies Overcharge For Data??"
(I would think the why would be obvious to anyone who's not a mouth-breather...)
True Unlimited. How the hell are people stupid enough to have other carriers? They gave me an Air-Rave signal repeater because the signal at my house was weak. Free for life.
It would be nice if we had a competitive market like in the uk.
3...2...1...
Seriously though, if airports, etc., wanted to enforce their paywall, they can just drop all packets that aren't destined for "inside the free walled garden" and be done with it.
DNS or other UDP or TCP access to a machine inside the walled garden e.g. a "pay me" web site? Traffic allowed.
DNS or other port UDP or TCP access to outside the garden? Drop or re-route to a fake server at that address.
As for ISPs and cell-phone-data providers that offer free DNS lookups, expect most of them to start charging unless the DNS request is to their server. On the flip side, expect many to offer free access to other "in the free garden" pages including customer-service pages, their own ad-filled web-search engine, and the like.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
or disguise a disguesed DNS request
or, oh, curses, refoiled again!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
However, it might run java.
First, carriers "optimize" traffic which actually saves the subscriber money. I won't get into the details - but most carriers around the world deploy optimization techniques that save their subscribers money at the carrier's expense.
Second, subscribers are charged for IP packets, this is true. That includes TCP retransmissions. Subscribers are not charged for air-interface retransmissions. What I mean to say here is that there are multiple layers that involved in ensuring packets make it to user equipment. The first approach is at the radio level using something known as "HARQ" for retransmission and error correction. If the device does not receive a transmission at this level, the content is automatically scheduled for retransmission. These air interface retransmissions are never charged to the subscriber - the carrier eats them. There's good reason for this: users who are at the edge of the cell need more retransmission than those who are closer to the center. The carriers thus don't charge users more just because they're at the edge.
So to summarize: there's a lot of retransmission in wireless networks - and most carriers eat the cost of most of the retransmission. It's only when a higher layer protocol, like TCP, needs a retransmission that a subscriber foots that bill. End of day, carriers are billing on IP Packets Sent/Received - not on the actual radio usage. This is hugely advantageous to the subscriber.
Reading the summary, I had to wonder: if the phone company only charged you for packets received, then couldn't the phone-owner game the system by instructing his phone to claim that the packet was never received? In other words, send a request for some data, receive the data and use it, and have the phone tell the company that the packets never arrived. Result: you can turn your limited data plan into an unlimited data plan. (This would obviously be an exploit similar to the DNS one, but it would use a different method to get free data.)