SMS data rate is 4x more expensive than data from the Hubble
He worked out the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble – and compared that with the 5p cost of sending a text.Link (via Consumerist)He said: “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that.
“The maximum size for a text message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for a text message is 5p. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so that's 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each, that's £374.49 per MB - or about 4.4 times more expensive than the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs.”
Dr Bannister said it had been difficult to work out exactly how much Hubble data transmission costs. So he contacted NASA who gave him a firm figure of £8.85 per megabyte (MB) for the transmission of data from HST to the Earth.
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Is my browser malfunctioning or is there a picture of a manbaby holding a babyman by the ocean behind the text. Please disregard if this is a figment of my imagination.
Ok, its gone now. I am not insane, my friend saw it too.
My network was twice as much. Really puts it in perspective to think I'm overplaying by four times the cost of outer atmosphere to Earth communication.
140 plus 6 for the routing to information, and plus 6 for the from field... but it still shows how crappy txt messaging is cost wise. And you can assume most messages are way less then 140 bytes... so throw in a byte for how long the message is and you have all the packet information needed at minimum for the service.
It's funny to think that text messages are a bigger ripoff then $5 for a ring tone because from what I understand the phone companies make way more from ring tones then they do from txt messages...
Isn't 374.49/8.85 closer to 42 than 4.4?
People pay $5 for ringtones still?
Most people have unlimited texts, which explains why the revenue has decreased, Spoon. Some of us are still limited to 250 a month, though, and overage is killer (just 10c a message adds up quick). Minutes are dreadful, too. The cell companies are gouging us just like the oil.
Can I just use Hubble, then?
Um, well, to be fair they're not including depreciation into the Hubble calculations.
Damn, I pay 10p per text.
i have unlimited texts for like $10 extra a month. i make roughly 1500 texts a month so thats like 1.5 cents a text.
not defending cell phone companies, but you can also send a picture message for the same rate
its not about the bandwidth, its about cost per message... or at least how much people will pay per message...
This isn't a very fair comparison since receiving data from Hubble is not done directly for profit.
That makes it a good comparison because it makes it clear that this is about profit and not about the cost of offering a service.
When I first got my current cell phone, I was so enthusiastic about being able to download stuff. (This was like 5 years ago, it's kind of ancient now.) I downloaded a couple of games and 2 ringtones. It should have worked out to less than $15 -- instead it was $15 + $35 for the data transfer, at $50/MB. I was pretty damn shocked... especially since my service was $45/month and was advertised as including web access, and no mention was made of data fees. Of course, it was also advertised as costing $25/month (plus system access fee, plus 911 fee, plus tax -- I'm on prepaid now, $12.50/month with no catches).
I never really got into text messages, since none of my friends got into them. I don't mind the price so much, but I wish they weren't so ridiculously short. Cell phone novels might actually take off here if they allowed a couple of kB/message. They're advertising TV shows and cellular broadband, but a little text? Forget it.
Well anyway, it's never about cost, it's about the price the market is willing to bear.
I always prefer to call, only resorting to text messages when I know that the receiver is busy or cannot answer the phone. The fare on those sms are simply unbelievable.
I remember a university class a few years back where we discussed the price vs value for SMS. One theory our professor brought up back then was as simple as it seems plausible:
People don't mind being overcharged (in terms of costs-for-traffic) for texting so much because SMS offer a different value than simple data transfer - you rather cough up those cents per SMS in order to avoid direct communication.
Example? You want to convey that you won't be attending that birthday party; that you're late; that you forgot to buy that shirt a friend asked you to bring along. SMS allow you to push your message without giving the other person a proper chance to reply, and takes the hassle out of conveying a negative message.
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Thewavingcat: I don't use SMS much, but the people I know who do tend to communicate bidirectionally. It's not a drive-by message.
@ #5: It seems to me like the headline is off by a factor of ten as well... Isn't it 42x as expensive?
What kills me about SMS is that the cell providers hit you coming and going - they charge you just as much for receiving a message as sending one.
So where they tell you they're charging 10 cents per message, they're actually taking in 20.
Falling profits on SMS? I seriously doubt it.
It's true, but if you buy oil by the drop, it's more expensive than oil by the gallon, too. By a factor of a MILLION!! (or whatever)
What would it cost to send 7500 text messages from Hubble, one at a time?
i dont mind the cost. its simple quick and east to use. What i hate however is the arbitary character limit of 127. Give us unlimited letters you swine!
It cost that much because it can. And the telecoms can just keep raising rates, because we are electronic addicts and won't give up our drug. Just like we're addicted to gas and won't give up our cars. Oh well, such is a world run by greedy SOBs.
Hubble transfers to one Operations Center in Maryland. That's a pretty limited service. The researchers aren't exactly downloading data on globular clusters while sitting in the Wendy's drive-thru. Comparing that to the cost of building and maintaining an expansive network to immediately route data to any point in the nation is not really "apples-to-apples".
What's amazing is the SMS data takes no extra communication to send--it's sent via the tower-to-phone pinging.
Its just supply and demand in action. There's lots of demand and very little true competition, as the companies vie for higher and higher prices with lower and lower services.
It should be 4 to 42 times more expensive:
Quote source: "The data from Hubble could vary between £8.85 and £85 per MB"
Rare as it is, but nice bit of conservative reporting there, i.e. picking the smaller/sensible instead of 'BIG FIGURES', though its probably more realistic to choose the 42x figure, as £85 must be on a bad day surely?