When innovation doesn't reach the people…
…you know something is wrong.
This is a rant I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. It costs cell phone operators practically nothing to deliver an SMS within their own network, and maybe a little to deliver it to another network – so why do they charge the end user so much? Would a broadband internet subscriber agree to paying 10 cents for transferring 160 bytes of data? That’s how much data is in a single SMS, and everytime you send one, your cellphone company enjoys profit margins of close to 98%.
We’ve got even better technology reaching the mobile market – 3G networks can offer data speeds of upto 7.2Mbits/sec (the theoritical limit is 14.4Mbits/sec). Combined with VOIP systems, that should mean cheap telephony and communication for everyone. It means you could reduce your mobile phone bills to 10% of what you’re paying now.
But no. You’re not allowed to use VOIP on your smartphone unless you’re in a WiFi hotspot. Why not? Because the cell phone operators don’t want you to – that would be bad for business wouldn’t it? I thought the whole point of technology was to make things cheap and easier for the end users. Apparently not.
This situation is a bit like when the old vinyl record companies tried to push back the compact disk revolution just because it would be “bad for business”. This is what happens when you put technology into the hands of giant corporates whose only reason to exist is profit. It’s like all the cell phone operators all over the world have an unspoken agreement to fleece the consumer collectively.
What we need is just one company to take a bold move forward by breaking this pact. It’s not like they have to invest huge amounts of money, the technology and infrastructure is here and now. Please, just charge the consumer how much it actually costs to make a call or send an SMS, with a reasonable profit margin. The rest will follow suit, as the free market dictates. That’s how the cell phone rates in India dropped drastically, and it’s our only ray of hope.
It’s not enough if we have open mobile phones, we need operators that are as honest and open as the handset. Communication simply doesn’t cost as much as the cell phone operators tell you it does, and it’s about time more people realized it.
Posted by Anant on September 5th, 2008 in Apple, Life, Technology | 6 Comments
Jeremy Olexa remarks on September 6th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Right on, thanks for the post and spreading it to the masses.
sqweek remarks on September 6th, 2008 at 6:46 am
Surely it’s not transferring the data that is the cost, but the cost of maintaining the network?
Would the mobile infrastructure that exists today be in place if not for past profiteering? If Ericsson had less comfortable profit margins, would they have had the inclination/resources to develop Erlang?
Cheap communication would be a great thing, I agree. But I’m not sure great necessarily implies “right”, or “appropriate”.
(Note: you may have realised already that I don’t have any direct experience with telecommunications. I don’t even own a mobile, so there’s a certain amount of speculation in my post)
-sqweek
Anant remarks on September 6th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Nope. Broadband internet, Landline telephones and other services run on the SAME infrastructure. Maintaining the network does NOT cost that much! Not the amount that the operators are charging, in any case. If that weren’t true; all the operators in India would be running into huge losses, which I know they aren’t.
On the issue of making cellphone companies rich so they can do cool R&D, well that applies to any industry. But we still don’t overpay car manufacturers, civil engineers or food companies just so they can develop cool new products. R&D can and will happen without corporates with giant profit margins.
Ashish Shukla remarks on September 10th, 2008 at 7:03 am
That is probably one of the reasons why we don’t have multicast enabled throughout the internet :P.
Rahul Murmuria remarks on September 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Seriously! I second this opinion! AT&T is fleecing me here in the United States. The stupid concept of credit history did not help my cause further! Can’t even buy a postpaid connection till I have credit history
Across the Stars » Blog Archive » Ghosts I-IV (and the best music of 08) remarks on December 9th, 2008 at 2:13 am
[...] are the days where you need large amounts of money to produce and distribute your work of art. As I said earlier, the whole point of technology is to make things cheaper, faster and better for everyone involved, [...]