iPhone data use measured, carriers want Apple to pay for network upgrades - Page 4

All corporations are greedy. None of them wants to compete in the marketplace. They would cut their throats for a monopoly like MS. If corporations are a person like the Supreme Courts says, pharmaceuticals will sell poison to their mother just to make a buck.

Where did you dream that up?

From the D: Dive into Mobile keynote discussion with Andy Rubin:


Apparently "open" for Android means that it's open to the carriers to modify at their whim.

Andy is talking about the openness of Verizon being able to swap out the Google application for the Bing application. This is not the same as being able to modify the Android OS. Do you know the difference between the OS and the application?

What this really means is that Apple made an insanely useful phone, and people use it more than ever... And now the carriers wanna punish them for it.

Cheeky Chappy Stores seeks payments from TV manufacturers to fund store expansion:

"We've had this great business selling pocket transistor radios but now our customers prefer buying more and more flatscreen TVs which have been getting bigger and bigger. We can only store one or two TVs in a space originally built to hold fifty radios.

We can't cope with all our customers demanding bigger and bigger TVs; Panasonic make some of the largest TVs so it's time they pay towards our building larger stores and expanding existing stores to hold more TV stock".

SJ to network carriers: "Blow me!"

No, the lost 2 decades happened because the Japanese government was rudderless and was just throwing stuff on the wall to see if they stick (like pasta). Japanese government keeping controlling ownership of NTT and NTT DoCoMo is a bad thing for consumer. You might as well advocate that the US government should buy AT&T and Verizon to re-create Ma Bell and then spend $300 BILLION government money on fiber deployment across America.

The iphone is the best comparison tool ever existed for international comparison. It is used by expats all around the world.


Brits had the highest SMS usage in Europe --- and US dwarfed Brits in SMS usage. Verizon Wireless has more 3G users than the ENTIRE Vodafone empire in Europe. US has more 3G penetration than Europe. US has more smartphone penetration (and more higher end smartphone than the symbian phoes) than Europe.

The EC has been talking about migrating to the US system for the last few years now.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2008...fx5119680.html

You are just penny-wise and dollar-stupid. Who cares if you get charged for receiving a call if you pay less in total terms. If you are getting 100 minutes for $10 and you don't pay for receiving incoming calls vs. I get 300 minutes for $10 and get charged for incoming calls --- for the whole population as a whole when you average out incoming/outgoing as 50/50 mix, I am getting a better deal than you.

A few of you might buy a unsubsidized phone and use it on any carriers, but the majority are buying subsidized phones on contract --- which in Europe, you can't get out of contract without paying the full amount owing for the rest of contract. Technically easy to switch carriers in Europe, but financially difficult to switch in Europe. In the US, you get out of your existing contract by paying relatively inexpensive pro-rated Early Termination Fees, then you sign another contract with a second carrier which will give you a free phone --- who cares if you are switching from a CDMA carrier to a GSM carrier and can't use your old phone. Since chips double speed every 18 months, my free phone will be much better and faster than your ancient 2 year old iphone which you pay 700 euro for.

I guess it is very expensive here since my daughter is paying 5 USD for 3000 minutes. And that is not a fixed length contract.

Actually a large part of europe does buy the phone and subscription separately. The UK is just one of tens of countries on this side of the pond.

You're so Intent on proving that the US is superior that you hand pick your comparison points and even then you don't seem do proper research. No need for that. The US is quickly catching up after a few decades of very slow development in mobile. So much so that in some areas US has already passed Europe and Asia. Doesn't mean that all US decisions are the best (or worst). A critical view usually helps to find the best of all solutions. We can all benefit from learning from one another with an open mind.

People often come up with these price comparisons with MVNO deals.

A large part of Europe have the option of buying the phone and subscription separately --- doesn't mean that people actually do it. When the iphone was first launched in France, the percentage of people buying the phone separately without contract was something like 5% as announced by the carrier themselves.

The international launch of the iphone definitely shattered all myths about how Europe is years ahead of US. Go to Ireland and Sweden, nobody talked about 3G beauty contest anymore. Go to the EC, nobody talked about limiting 3G expansion band auctions to be limited to WCDMA/HSDPA technology --- all those 3G expansion band auctions were done 3-4 years ago in a technology-neutral way so that carriers would have to option to deploy wimax. Go to the EC and everybody is talking about migrating to American style "bill and keep" is their LONG term goal. What's keeping the EC from doing that? It's people like you who refuse to actually acknowledge their views as penny-wise and dollar-stupid.

Hell, even the GSMA is getting rid of the SIM card.

I have always stated that we live in an imperfect world --- and out of all the imperfect solutions, the American system seems to be correct most of the time.

And being open means they can add, remove or change features (including tethering) as they wish.

ARGH!. And you conveniently change the subject each time you are proven wrong. Starting to piss me off that is. And how does the MVNO field change the fact that your statement on price differences was proven false?

And once again. The iPhone is only one of many. Picking your comparisons with the iPhone is disregarding a HUGE part of the existing market. Especially when the subsidies differences make it even more difficult to compare pricing. Evem tjen, the iPhone contracts are not the cheapest in the US. I believe Asia had the lowes iPhone + contract pricing? Could be wrong there.

Just to ask a simple question. If your view that the US system is the best (let's just limit it to mobile), why did it take the US over 20 years to catch up with the rest? Please give at least two reasons so that you restore my faith in people actually looking analytically at issues and not just picking comparison points to make themselves feel good about the country they live in.

Regs, Jarkko

Anybody can dig up time limited special pricing deals on MVNO's --- even in the US. I can even call up my carrier, threaten to leave and see if they will give me a special pricing plan. If I succeed and I post my lower pricing on this forum, what does that prove --- absolutely nothing.

The iphone is the best tool for international comparison --- because it's standardized, and well documented in English. I don't need to learn Swedish just to find out what's going on to the local market scene in Sweden --- or any of the 10-20 different languages in the first world OECD countries. We are talking about first world countries where service pricing should be compared --- not insanely cheap voice minutes in India.

It's called the rabbit vs. the turtle. And the turtle is going to win at the end. I rather have a long term win and a short term win. EVERYTHING you think is correct in Europe --- turns out that the whole Europe has either migrated already to the US system, or in the process of migrating, or has stated that in the long term to be hopefully migrating (barring obstructionist like you). You can have your nostalgia about how Nokia used to rule the world.

American style "bill and keep" mobile termination rate is the perfect example --- study after study has shown that Europe should adopt it. European Commission has stated --- in their complete lack of backbone way --- that this is their long term goal for benefiting consumers.

Europeans used to think that high spectrum auction prices would increase mobile service prices. But you know what --- for the last 3 years, UK has basically the cheapest iphone plans in the whole Europe, even though they had the highest 3G auction prices in 1999/2000. Countries like Norway and France --- which basically gave away 3G spectrums for peanuts, had much higher iphone plans pricing.

Not limited pricing. Standard pricing. And this by looking up just one. Not even digging for a lower price. No matter how much you'd wantit to be different by again selecting your comparison points instead of looking at something, which is not subsidisedso that you see the actual price if the service.


Thank you. Just proved the point that you are looking at a ver limited view of the market to see what you want to see.


Nope. Just giving you factual data about the points that your claims clearly have as incorrect. Notice I didn't refute your SMS claims? Or your FTTH claims? I didn't because they were largely correct.


Agreed. Now that most users have devices that have A-number display, it makes more sense as you can decide if you want to pay for receiving a call from a user you can identify.

Did you ever think of why the REST OF THE WORLD hasn't gone into "bill and keep" yet? The US is the only one in that scheme. If you think really hard, you'll quickly see why that is. It has nothing to do with US or Europe or Asia or China being superior or inferior. "Bill and keep" combined with another US-only feature of mobile usage is one of the main reasons for the low adoption rates in the US for the previous 20 years when the rest of the world (not just Europe) went ahead with mobile. The previous US spectrum allocations in the eighties were another factor that is widely accepted as a flawed approach.

Like I said. All countries/regions do some things better than others. None are perfect. By having an open mind, we can find the best solutions to current needs. Needs change, thus regulations change.


Sigh: http://www.newamerica.net/publicatio...ans_and_prices just to prove your point fails once again now with yet another study. This one quite recent. How many times does this have to be done before you believe? But it seems you don't even bother looking at the facts that oppose your view?

The iPhone pricing is not transparent enough to make a valid comparison UNLESS your only interested in buying an iPhone. It only shows the comparative competitiveness of the local iPhone market. Not the mobile market as a whole.

It also took UK 10 years to get lowish prices and half decent coverage which s still appalling compared to other developed Asian and European countries). And they have tough competition out there with all four major players sharing roughly 25% each of the market so you'd assume by your theorem that they should have excellent coverage.

Prove what? It is impossible to independently verify your claims (or a million other people's claims) that they somehow gets an extremely cheap pricing on their cell phone plans. I don't speak Japanese or Swedish, how would I be able to verify that such and such plans are really true.

How would I verify my own "cheap" pricing --- scan my letter threatening to leave AT&T and then scan AT&T's letter saying that they would give me a discount and then post them to this forum.

Comparing regular price iphone plans are the best way to independently verify claims of international pricing comparisons.


How could you refute my SMS claim? This is UK telecom regulator (Ofcom) saying it.

Quote: "And although we’re the second highest texting nation in world – sending 83 billion text messages in 2008 – the UK is still dwarfed by the US which sends 10 times more."

http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2009/1...ommunications/

US has 5 times more population than UK, but text 10 times more in total --- it means that Americans send twice as much text per capita than the second highest country in the world.


Canada, Hong Kong also use the "bill and keep" method. And Hong Kong is the definitive iphone paradise. Why would Europe care about mobile penetration right now --- when they have 120-150% mobile penetration. They are meaningless statistics when all they are counting is spare SIM card accounts in the desk drawers.

Did you ever think of why the REST OF THE WORLD are all saying the same thing that "bill and Keep" is their long term goal.


Read their methodology, it falls in the same trap as OECD comparison. People from a poor third world country like India can only get voice at 1 cent a minute, but somehow you manage to get 3000 minutes for $5. Congrats.

It didn't take UK 10 years to get low prices. All it took was Li Ka Shing entering the UK market with Hutchison 3 UK at the height of the internet bubble --- he bought high and can't sell the business, can't IPO his business (failed Hutchison 3 Italia IPO). He flipped businesses like Americans flipped houses. So what did he do? Start a bunch of price wars in UK, Sweden and Australia --- hoping one of his competitors would buy him out. It partially worked in Australia when he monetize his investment when Vodafone Australia and Hutichson 3 Australia merged last year.

It isn't impossible or even difficult. Again: Regular pricing. I as others have shown you several before in other discussions with links, but as it doesn't suit your view, you find excuses or switch topic. You don't need to understand Fremch, Swedish or German or Japanese as long as you understand symbols like , £, $, min, SMS etc.

As an example:
http://saunalahti.fi/gsm/

Some sites even speak English if you care to press the button, where it says "In English":

Looking at iPhone plans in US, Canada, HK and UK because their sites are in English is conveniently ignoring 98% of the market out there, thus making wide assumptions about telecoms legislation and policy on a few percentage points of a total market is, well... Not to mention that pricing is affected by more than one policy (like bill-and-keep).

As for bill-and-keep. Now that the market is more mature, it makes more sense than before, when penetration growth was more important. Bill and keep has always been used in roaming scenarios.

It may very well be (quite likely) that for the next 20, the US is at the forefront of mobile communication. But: if the US system is so brilliant without a SINGLE flaw, why was the last 20 years the way it was?

If modus operandi is anything to go by, you won't answer this one but here's hoping: Since you're so set in the premise that the US system is without flaws and that the rest of the world should adopt the US system as is , please outline a few mistakes/flaws/reasons, why the US took 20 years to catch up in the mobile space and what caused the current momentum change (changes in US market or Other world markets?) that may eventually make the US lead in most parts of the Mobile space? Did Europe and Asia stop innovating, have they invented laws that stifle development and competition? The Turtle and Hare doesn't really fit, because the change in the US market dynamics has been massive in the last years (The US is the hare right now).

I agree completely. This kind of whiney crap from Wireless providers really pisses me off. If you don't have the bandwidth to support a device DON'T SELL IT. If you can't provide the service at a sustainable market price, you are in the wrong business.

The Eurozone Telco's are a different matter. Most of them are government owned. Hence, inherently incompetent.