Free Texts Pose Threat to Carriers

Exavior said:
pretty soon all of this will be gone. Days of telephone network are numbered. 10 - 15 years from now analog phones and the current cell service will be the way of rotary phones. Everything will be VOIP, you won't have a phone plan, you will have data plans. Then the cost of minutes, the cost for text, the cost of all that will go away.
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No, we'll just be swapping them for the cost of MB's. Same dog with a different collar.
 
You can't argue with the fact that increased data volume will make voice and texting way cheaper. The difference is we'll still be using all the volume doing other things with our super-phones.
 
Exavior said:
pretty soon all of this will be gone. Days of telephone network are numbered. 10 - 15 years from now analog phones and the current cell service will be the way of rotary phones. Everything will be VOIP, you won't have a phone plan, you will have data plans. Then the cost of minutes, the cost for text, the cost of all that will go away.
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Aheh...yeah, that way they can fuck the consumer even harder then they are now. They will charge you by the byte and rig the codecs to use as much bandwidth as possible and if you fiddle with it, it won't work, or some equally heinous variation of that.

Watch and see.
 
Everyone is blaming the carriers but it is not just their fault. It is the fault of stupid Americans and the way they act and raise their kids. The carriers just figured out the best way to charge money playing to our emotions. Most Americans are too nieve to just pay a reasonable rate for a service. Instead we always look for the lowest up front cost then let ourselves get screwed over by up charges. They used to call this bait and switch now we call it a good deal. That is all consoles are, phone service charges, bank charges, everything. It is the fact we are unwilling to pay a reasonable price for the basic service yet some how don't have enough of a problem to stop that. Parents are unwilling to put their kids in check on the texting and keep the phone use under control. I have to face palm every time I go into a phone store and see someone complaining about a $300 bill with over charges when all they had to do is buy the unlimited plan for $99.

So the point is as long as people keep buying into loss leader models this will never change. When people grow up and realize it costs money to run a company and are willing to pay a fair price for that we might see more reasonable plans. In other countries were pre paid systems are in place the companies compete and have very reasonable rates for most things. They dont have 45 cent texts overages and subsidized phones though.
 
ZeroBarrier said:
No, we'll just be swapping them for the cost of MB's. Same dog with a different collar.
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STrooperTK421 said:
Aheh...yeah, that way they can fuck the consumer even harder then they are now. They will charge you by the byte and rig the codecs to use as much bandwidth as possible and if you fiddle with it, it won't work, or some equally heinous variation of that.

Watch and see.
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they already change you overages and stuff, so that should be that much different. Won't mean the cell phone companies won't try. as for codecs, most devices and software are going with SIP right now. Stay with that and you won't have an issue. I could go into this a lot deeper, but i just say that yes there is a chance that they will keep fucking with people and somehow make it worse. But at the same time there is also a chance for it to be better. Right now they are going to fuck you 3 ways. long distance, texting, and data. At that point all you are paying for is data and so all they should be able to charge you overages for is data.
 
i realized after posting my above post i didn't think that through every well codec =/= protocol. Yes it "could" be possible if you were using the cell phone companies client only that they could force you to use a HD audio codec instead of having it adjust based on the bandwidth that you had. at that point you could just use another service and not theirs for voice that didn't do that.
 
I believe the avg markup of a text message is somewhere between 500-700%.

Then again I believe texting is one of those things that should die because it honestly makes no sense. There are very few practical applications for it, and most people dont use them for it.
 
Google Voice FTW. Get GV number, give GV number to everyone, use GV app, don't pay for texts..
 
Newsflash guys, texting is not data it goes over the voice network. One of the reasons why U.S. carriers charge a premium over it is because of all the extra infrastructure and reliability it has over sending a message on the internet. This is why hospitals, emergency services etc still use a simple pager or a dumb phone. I'm not defending the U.S. carriers in any way. It isn't as simple as "Let's dump the network and route messages through the internet."
 
bh192012 said:
I thought the killer app was called email. Works with Android, iOS, symbian etc. you name it. If you have a smartphone, you already own this "app."
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That's why I have texting blocked on my cell phone.
On my Blackberry, emails are almost instant (they appear on my phone sooner than they do in Outlook). And if it's a real emergency, then just CALL me because it's a PHONE !
 
AFAIK, text messages don't really cost anything. They are data transmissions that would have probably been used when the phone "calls home" to the tower to tell it that it's still there.
 
Its obscene how greedy these cell phone companies are and how much money they are raking in. Just before leaving VZW, my supervisor said they obviously want to get as many customers on smartphones as possible, to saddle them with required data packages.

Now that VZW moved to tiered data, they want customers to move beyond their lowest $30/2gb package all the way up to the $80/10gb packages, get them hooked on streaming video and music to pay the nose for more data. I'm keeping my grandfathered unlimited data for dear life. If push comes to shove, I may have to move back to a feature-phone, as painful as it may be. Its very hard to go back once you move to a smartphone, and these greedy companies realize it.

They are not unlike drug dealers that want to get you hopelessly addicted to their product and milk you dry.
 
I thought text messages were jammed in the 'empty space' of the voice data packets anyway? Effectively we are being charged for them using wasted space.

Go figure. :rolleyes:
 
Brak710 said:
AFAIK, text messages don't really cost anything.
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This. Texts are not delivered in real time. They only get sent in times that the network has unused bandwidth. When a network is heavily congested, texts stay on the back burner. When it has available bandwidth, they get sent.
 
fattypants said:
This. Texts are not delivered in real time. They only get sent in times that the network has unused bandwidth. When a network is heavily congested, texts stay on the back burner. When it has available bandwidth, they get sent.
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That is not correct. The short version is that the first time an SMS goes through the various routers/registers will make an attempt to send it to its destination as fast as it can. If it fails at any point it will make an attempt to retry for a speciific amount of time. Carriers today have it setup so it will make an attempt to get the text sent through within a 72 hour period after that it will give up If it cannot find the subscriber. The main reason why texts gets lost is due to the destination phone not being properly registered on it's home HLR (Phone is off, is roaming in BFE etc...)
 
STrooperTK421 said:
I am currently in a bitter nasty ass fight with Sprint, and I have HAD IT with that shit ass worthless fucking carrier. I dropped Ma-Bell for these assholes, and what did I get for my trouble? A higher bill, and shittier service. For over two months my 3G speeds on the tower that I use here at home (apartment, full signal, the goddamn tower is right down the fucking street - verified by engineer that I talked to) have been 8k-40k with an average latency of 1500+ms. I can travel less then 2 miles and hit another tower and my 3G speeds are ~1150k down / ~800k up with an average latency of 350-500ms.

I can just barely get a 4g signal if I sit outside on my balcony and my speeds are better with a poor 4g signal then with a full 3g signal and I am sick and fucking tired of it. So, how much do I pay for two lines of this worthless shit?

$160 a MONTH.

I told the supervisor that I will not be paying the bill, I have been more then patient, and I have waited because I understand that things happen, but NOT FOR 2 GODDAMN MONTHS. "Well, sir, I am poling the tower and it shows that your QOS is 99% voice, and 97% data, so we are not going to let you out of your contract"....yeah...so to them I guess it is ok that it takes 3 FUCKING HOURS to download 20 MEGS of updates from the market, oh and I can forget streaming anything when I am here at home, unless I use wifi...but if I am going to do that, I might as well use my desktop.

Never again...NEVER AGAIN. I am going to terminate my contract and let the ETF ride, fuck 'em, me an my wife are going pre-paid with one feature phone for her (for ER's) for $30 a month and let that be that.
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Xae said:
I also had sprint for a long time, and Ive moved several times in my area.. every new house still sucked for service. They updated the tower near my last house, updated my last phone twice, and I still was dropping phone calls.. from 4 bars to no service off and on, even if I was outside in the street my phone wouldn't get service.

So since I deployed again I just canceled my service, I won't be returning to sprint, ever.
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Thanks for this, we were actually considering Sprint
 
BloodDonor said:
yeah texting uses the bandwidth that was set aside for the network maintenance im told
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Which means we are being robbed of that extra bandwidth from the start! Now they complain because we don't want to buy it back?
 
CharonPDX said:
I just started the process of encheapening my cell phone bill.

My wife and I have smartphones. We use, on average, a combined total of 300 minutes. The minimum family plan is 550 minutes for $60. At 10 cents a minute on prepaid, we'd pay about $30 a month for minutes.

We're grandfathered into the $30/month unlimited data. Yet, analyzing past usage, my wife almost never crosses the 100 MB/month mark, and I'm usually right about 450 MB. (With the occasional spike above 500 MB, largely due to illicitly tethering while on a trip.) The 'current' plans are 200 MB/month or 2 GB/month. Yet prepaid has 100 MB/month and 500 MB/month marks. Those are the perfect marks for us. So instead of $60/month at current, we'll move down to $40/month (if I pick 500 MB/month and she picks 100 MB/month.)

Plus, we pay $30/month for the family plan unlimited messaging.

Total current bill: $150/month.

But, we're not just converting to pre-paid, we're also porting our old numbers to Google Voice. We've already dropped $30/month for voice - by using Google Voice to have our mobile numbers ring at 'free' locations (home phone or on computer) we will likely save even more. The data plan will drop $20/month. Google Voice offers free texting. There's another $30/month gone.

Total new bill: Between $50 and $70 a month. (Varies based on exactly how much cell voice we use.)

Total savings: Between $80 and $100 a month. That's $960 to $1200 in the first year. That's a new unsubsidized phone plus a few hundred dollars each year.
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Want to save even MORE? Ditch your land line and get this: http://www.obihai.com/index.html

Works with Google voice. So you have a "Land" line via the internet connection. My house is in a weak cell area, so I use this with my GV number and it works great.
 
Bohica69 said:
Want to save even MORE? Ditch your land line and get this: http://www.obihai.com/index.html

Works with Google voice. So you have a "Land" line via the internet connection. My house is in a weak cell area, so I use this with my GV number and it works great.
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I just want to be able to call out via Google Voice with my GV number showing, not my cell number. :( Then I would be completely set.
 
TheWeazmeister said:
I just want to be able to call out via Google Voice with my GV number showing, not my cell number. :( Then I would be completely set.
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With that obi, your GV number is what the other person sees, because that's what you are using. Setup the GV app on your phone and then that's all anybody would see.
 
bh192012 said:
I thought the killer app was called email. Works with Android, iOS, symbian etc. you name it. If you have a smartphone, you already own this "app."
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EXACTLY

Add in the fact that you literally can text a phone using your email via [email protected] its your own dumb fault if you have a smart phone and pay for a texting plan.
 
Sixthsense said:
Thanks for this, we were actually considering Sprint
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You still may want to consider them. Sprint does not have the best network but I have been with them for years. I have not had any problem major problems everything i dealt with was taken care of by CS in 1 phone call. My sister has verizon and has lots of horror stories she wants back on sprint but her husband wong go. I pay alot less and have worry free unlimited everything on sprint. I can tell you all sorts of bad things about the other carriers. At the end of the day though sprint is cheaper so even if you hate them you can get out of contract cheaper and easier. So IMO it is worth the risk. Want to do verizon get ready for damn near $400 ETF if you want out.
 
"Cellphone customers pay for each text message or sign up for a texting plan, while the newer messages will fall under a customer’s wireless data plan."
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evilsofa said:
Data transfer rates for mobile phones are so ridiculous that you could buy a hard drive (any size), fill it up, ship it overnight, and discard the hard drive after the file transfer and still come out ahead.
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Can't believe it took 8 posts for someone who was able to read between the lines (and found it important enough to mention as the primary point). :(

This simply means a shift from billing your texts, to running out your data plan faster ....presumably they'll do away with a texting fee altogether, and hike their data rates).
 
rudy said:
Everyone is blaming the carriers but it is not just their fault. It is the fault of stupid Americans and the way they act and raise their kids. The carriers just figured out the best way to charge money playing to our emotions. Most Americans are too nieve to just pay a reasonable rate for a service. Instead we always look for the lowest up front cost then let ourselves get screwed over by up charges. They used to call this bait and switch now we call it a good deal. That is all consoles are, phone service charges, bank charges, everything. It is the fact we are unwilling to pay a reasonable price for the basic service yet some how don't have enough of a problem to stop that. Parents are unwilling to put their kids in check on the texting and keep the phone use under control.
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Quoted for some serious fucking truth.

Further, rather than upgrade the spoiled little shits to an unlimited plan <that following line I snipped>...just take their damn phone away for going over to help them LEARN responsibility. :rolleyes: that's too hard for the "timeout generation" though I guess.
 
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