What carriers aren't eager to tell you about texting (Some relevance to NZ)

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jermsie

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#29197 28-Dec-2008 18:18

Found this NY Times article while looking through digg. Really goes to show that some of the high mobile charges are really unjustified.
I'm sure there's some relevance to the NZ mobile market.

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#186401 28-Dec-2008 18:52

I am really happy with the price of text messaging in New Zealand.

I would hope that within a few years, the cap on messages sent might double, and that MMS might be included.

Other than that, I think NZ has it pretty good in the SMS stakes.

dman

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#187682 6-Jan-2009 02:06

I just wish VF would drop the restriction on the 2000 txting to 027 numbers

that is the whole reason why I have an 021 phone, so all my friends on 021 are able to get in touch with me

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#187689 6-Jan-2009 06:44

While I understand SMS is an almost no on-going cost, interconnection to other networks is not free and sometimes requires the work of a third party - "clearing houses" to have thi working.

The article seems to fail to realise continuous platform support, upgrades, power, cooling, all gets into running costs. Of course the running costs are probably not in the same region as the revenues from the services though...

sbiddle

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#187692 6-Jan-2009 07:43

dman: I just wish VF would drop the restriction on the 2000 txting to 027 numbers

that is the whole reason why I have an 021 phone, so all my friends on 021 are able to get in touch with me

You won't ever get the TXT2000 deal between networks with current interconnection costs as they stand. It does really surprise me however that Vodafone have never introduced their TXT600 plan for Prepay users. These days people don't like paying 20c per TXT and not having a TXT plan for these users that offers interer network TXT's is costing Vodafone customers.

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#187717 6-Jan-2009 09:25

sbiddle:
dman: I just wish VF would drop the restriction on the 2000 txting to 027 numbers

that is the whole reason why I have an 021 phone, so all my friends on 021 are able to get in touch with me

You won't ever get the TXT2000 deal between networks with current interconnection costs as they stand. It does really surprise me however that Vodafone have never introduced their TXT600 plan for Prepay users. These days people don't like paying 20c per TXT and not having a TXT plan for these users that offers interer network TXT's is costing Vodafone customers.

exactly. If Vodafone had a deal for bulk txts to all mobiles in NZ, i'd be back as quick as you could say "$10 TXT". I much prefer their range of handsets, but there is no deal that can get anywhere close to $10 text right now on Vodafone. I still know too many people with Telecom phones.

alexx

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#188004 7-Jan-2009 13:40

Good article in some ways, but I'm not sure I'd agree with this bit...

"But text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network."

In GSM the SMS is normally carried on a SDCCH channel, so imagine the most simple GSM BTS configuration with a single TRX using Timeslot 0 for BCCH (Combined BCCH) and Full Rate Traffic Channels in TS 1-7. So what if we increase our SMS traffic, which is carried on SDCCH (part of the Combined BCCH on TSL 0) - how do we cope with the extra load on limited SDCCH resource?

One solution would be to put SDCCH on TSL 1. Now we have plenty of SDCCH capacity, but we have just lost 15% of our traffic capacity. In a larger cell (say 4 TRX), more than one TSL that could otherwise be used for TCH might be used for SDCCH (although the percentage of TSL used for SDCCH will be less than the one TRX example above).

Furthmore, SMS requires paging, so there is also PCH capacity to consider... we can carry much more paging if we make our Location Areas smaller, as the PCH is only sending paging for the mobiles in the LA. But if the LA is very small (e.g. one cell) then as the user moves from one cell to another, then there are location updates, which increases load on SDCCH (which is needed for SMS) and the additional Location Update transmisions reduce mobile battery life.

Please excuse any errors and oversimplications in the above - my GSM theory is very very rusty, but the point is that while SMS uses no TCH capacity, it is not quite a free ride as the article suggests and if network operators make SMS free or very cheap to the end user, then the rise in SMS usage (incuding spam) can have an impact on the network performance.

jjeele

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#189659 14-Jan-2009 23:53

sbiddle:
dman: I just wish VF would drop the restriction on the 2000 txting to 027 numbers

that is the whole reason why I have an 021 phone, so all my friends on 021 are able to get in touch with me

You won't ever get the TXT2000 deal between networks with current interconnection costs as they stand. It does really surprise me however that Vodafone have never introduced their TXT600 plan for Prepay users. These days people don't like paying 20c per TXT and not having a TXT plan for these users that offers interer network TXT's is costing Vodafone customers.

I agree that is why all Black + White plans come with 6oo any network texts per month. Remember $10 text only get you 500 texts then its back to 20 cents a time.

I believe a lot of VF Pre pay customers are paying a fortune on texts to TNZ mobiles. Scarey to think that 150 off net texts would cost $30....

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Behodar

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#189871 15-Jan-2009 21:32

Text messages are a maximum of 160 bytes, I believe. At 20c per 160 bytes, that's $1310.72 per MB (unless I've done my maths wrong).

Dratsab

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#190564 19-Jan-2009 17:03

Behodar: Text messages are a maximum of 160 bytes, I believe. At 20c per 160 bytes, that's $1310.72 per MB (unless I've done my maths wrong).

I get the same figure - 1024 bytes = 1 Kilobyte, 1024^2 = 1 megabyte, so (1048576 / 160) * .2 = $1310.72 per megabyte. However maths is pretty far from being my strong point...

Your model makes the assumption that all text messages are 160bytes. I would doubt that 99.9% of them exceed 100 characters, so you probably need to modify your end point by saying "minimum $1310.72 per megabyte of SMS messages transmitted".

Dratsab

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#190568 19-Jan-2009 17:26

jermsie: Found this NY Times article while looking through digg. Really goes to show that some of the high mobile charges are really unjustified.
I'm sure there's some relevance to the NZ mobile market.

Depends on which side of the fence you sit and how your definition of "unjustified" is, therefore, coloured.

@ jermsie: I'm playing a bit of devils advocate (again - lol) and will repeat that which has been pointed out by so many others in so many threads; the company is required by it's shareholders to return a profit. If it gets a lot of money by charging you for text messages, then essentially it's doing what it's supposed to.

At the end of the day, the Telco's are doing nothing illegal. Some might say it's unethical, but based on what? Overseas price comparisons where there is stronger competition and massively greater population densities in a not so geographically restrictive environment?

I agree that we should pay less and have fewer restrictions but we are in a deregulated market so it's not likely to happen.

I used to ROFL back in the 80's when we started to moving to a free market model, with all sorts of industry commentators telling us how it would be good for consumers because it would bring extra competition thereby reducing prices... I wonder if these self styled proclaimers were unaware of the size of the market or just chose to ignore it?

It's even funnier now with so many of these same people crying about the Telco's need to be regulated.

BTW - thanks for the link to the article. Interesting piece.

stevenz

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#190576 19-Jan-2009 17:58

Behodar: Text messages are a maximum of 160 bytes, I believe. At 20c per 160 bytes, that's $1310.72 per MB (unless I've done my maths wrong).

There's also a few bytes of header information and other padding that get sent as well, but in the grand scheme of things that's pretty insignificant. It's still a good little earner for them.

You can always use MMS in lieu of sending SMS, an extra 840 characters for only an extra 30c, I've been known to do so when I needed to write something particularly verbose and either email or a phonecall wasn't a better option.

Telecom also had a loophole in their voicemail system back in the 025 days where it was possible to send free voicemails to other people if the plan you were on didn't charge you to check your messages.

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#190591 19-Jan-2009 19:40

I note on the Vodafone site Forum, Txt600 for Prepay has been asked for (lots), only comment from Paul was the idea is with Marketing at present, been like that for a while...

Behodar

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#190603 19-Jan-2009 20:17

Dratsab: Your model makes the assumption that all text messages are 160bytes. I would doubt that 99.9% of them exceed 100 characters, so you probably need to modify your end point by saying "minimum $1310.72 per megabyte of SMS messages transmitted".

Indeed, most messages are definitely shorter. It's just an indication of how much the phone companies are charging for the service (LOTS!)