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so i guess dubya and mcflopapopfloflander are to blame for this.
Public release date: 12-May-2008
Contact: Dr. Nigel Bannister
44-011-622-31043
University of Leicester
Texting costs are 'out of this world'
University of Leicester space scientist says texting is at least four times more expensive than receiving scientific data from space
A University of Leicester space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope!
Dr Nigel Bannister’s calculations were used for the Channel 4 Dispatches programme “The Mobile Phone Rip-Off”.
He worked out the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble – and compared that with the 5p cost of sending a text.
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.
“This doesn't include the cost of the ground stations and the time of the personnel along the way, but it is an unambiguous number for that part of the process. So that's £8.85 to get each MB from Hubble, to the first point of contact on the ground, but no further. Hence we need to go a little bit further to estimate exactly how much it costs to transmit data from Hubble to the end user - i.e. to the data archive which scientists can access. This is difficult, so I had to make some conservative assumptions.”
Dr Bannister estimated the cost of the data from Hubble could vary between £8.85 and £85 per MB- much cheaper than the £374.49 per MB cost of transmitting one MB of text.
He concludes: “Hubble is by no means a cheap mission – but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical!”
###NOTE TO NEWSDESK:
For more information, contact
Dr Nigel Bannister
Space Research Centre
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Tel. +44 (0) 116 223 1043 (Office)
Personal Web: http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~npb
====================
All cellphone pricing and contacts are an exorbitant ripoff from the "free market" cartel of national providers. There is without any doubt pricing and no-compete collusion in the cartel.
so i guess dubya and mcflopapopfloflander are to blame for this.
and people wonder why I don't text them back.
Whatever you say.
I didn't say it. aka "putting words in my mouth".
LMAO! boutons hates everything! hahaha.
boutons must know something I don't know.
I pay $30 a month for unlimited texts, unlimited data (which I use with my Treo for email, surfing the web, and as a modem jacked into my laptop when I'm on the road/at the airport), free roaming, unlimited nights and weekends, and 500 anytime minutes from Sprint.
I love texting. We pay $30/month total unlimited for 3 phones.
And boutons finally uses the quote button!
I actually finally started texting after I discovered the abilities of the T9 button. I had to get a text plan after that.I love texting. We pay $30/month total unlimited for 3 phones.
And boutons finally uses the quote button!
Texting is stupid. It's harder and takes much longer than simply calling someone up and talking for a minute.
It's best-suited for times when you need discretion (i.e., a class) or when you want a msg delivered to many people at once (e.g., "in jail again, need $$$")
Freakin' a man.
It is cheaper for me to call them.
Good one, but so true...
Texting is good for getting the point across to someone you don't want to spend time on the phone with. If your good at it, its not harder and its faster than calling. Don't blame texting for you being a techno .
Shut up buttmunch.
Like I said, texting is fine in certain situations. But it should never be seen as a replacement for face-to-face, or at least telephone, communication with other people.
I agree. And when there's a group of people sitting around supposedly socialising, but half of them are on their phones texting the whole time, I really feel like warning the non-texters to move out of the way and throwing a hand grenade in the middle of the people fixated on their bright little screens... WAKE UP!
Anyhoo, yup, not a fan of texting, buy enough minutes to call instead is what I do.
Oh, and 5p - , it's at least 25c a text here which makes them 2.5 times more expensive than the UK!
Does the Australian franc = the British pound?
What is the exchange rate?
And, I may sound like a fogey here ... but I'm not crazy about kids having their own phones either. I want my kids to communicate with ME, and keep their head in the real world.
Why does it bother you, it shouldnt. If someone is texting instead of talking to it probably because your not interesting. Hate the player not the game.
Yea but the first time your kid calls and says not to come pick them up until 5 because coach wants an extra practice, you will be thankful for it. Especially after all the hours you will have already spent waiting outside of movie theatres, school dances, etc.! But it's just like everything else, you teach them and set limits. My pet peeve are those ipods every kid has hanging out of their ear. My kids have them, they bought with their own money, but they know they are never to wear it in mine or any other adult's presence. It hasn't been a problem. My kids have every one of those game systems---they are used maybe an hour per week. I didn't even have to set limits----just taught them to have interest in other things.
BTW, "buttmunch" is my 14 yr old's favorite name for his little brother!!!
Wow. A parent actually ... parenting.
An amazing, excellent thing!
lol
Yup, wasn't talking about me. My friends aren't s to their accessories. I was observing the world. If you are out with people, why the are you masturbating on your phone? It's plain rude and disrespectful to the people around you.
Answering a text from someone once or twice, no problem, but sitting there conducting a text "conversation" with someone while in a social situation - get your head checked.
Don - it's the Australian Dollar, and at the moment it buys about US95c and UK48p.
They use the Austrian dollar in England, where you are?
I agree totally. Texting back and forth is no way to carry on a conversation. Call him/her up!
Ok well in that right I agree, if it goes more than a few texts then yeah its time to call. Usually though one of the parties involved is either at work or somewhere where they cannot talk, then its fine. What I hate is when people send text message fwds. How the did that ever start.
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