vodafone overcharging for text messages?

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rickcrawley

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#34400 23-May-2009 18:06

I just read this article here:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how_to/4318204.html

It says a text message is a maximum 160 bytes of data.

Vodafone have a $1 a day for 10MB plan, but they charge 20cents for a text message.

I'm no good at maths, but what is 10MB divided by 160 bytes, because that would equal the number of text messages you can send until you reach 10MB, and I'm sure it is in the thousands, so a text message should cost less than 1 cent to send shouldn't it?

sbiddle

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#217274 23-May-2009 18:09

What a SMS might cost and what networks charge are two totally different issues.

You also can't directly compare data costs with SMS costs, this totally ignores the costs of continual upgrades of infrastructure to support SMS's such as SMSR's and also ignores the fact SMS interconnect charges between networks are also very significant.

exportgoldman

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#217285 23-May-2009 18:35

sbiddle: What a SMS might cost and what networks charge are two totally different issues.

You also can't directly compare data costs with SMS costs, this totally ignores the costs of continual upgrades of infrastructure to support SMS's such as SMSR's and also ignores the fact SMS interconnect charges between networks are also very significant.

People can and do compare these figures, depending really on what side of the dumb network arguement you fall on :)

I don't think the cost ignores the cost of continual upgrades of your SMS servers, but also remind you that ISP's have the same issues with SMTP servers, and it is always a eye opener to realise that when priced per Megabyte it costs more to send the equivilent size of data over SMS than it does it does to send it to the international space station.

Who said sending a SMS wasn't rocket science

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tonyhughes

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#217292 23-May-2009 18:49

I am REALLY happy with the cost of SMS in New Zealand.

I think 2000 texts for $10 a month is perfectly reasonable. (I am on Telecom).

I am expecting the price to stay similar but perhaps go to 1500 any network texts when XT launches, but I could be very wrong.

paradoxsm

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#217297 23-May-2009 19:08

I shove most of my SMS messages over an applications that connects to a SMSC in the UK using a data connection, (fishtext) they cost 6c (NZ) each 160 character part to most countries which is about the price I think they should eb charging including to international dest.

If SMS is too much, just use IM, most handsets can be loaded with an application now and data is super-cheap, I'm starting to use IM quite a lot again, it allowed "connected social networking and status updates" long before twitter and facbook came about.

IM=instant messaging, MSN messenger (Windows live) AOL, Yahoo messenger etc.

jpollock

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#217343 23-May-2009 23:23

The other interesting thing is that SMSC (the server that stores/forwards messages) vendors charge carriers per SMS as well. It really tends to distort the market.

As with most things, the expense is in setting up the session. The CPU cost of setting up the session to deal with an SMS or a Data connection is pretty much equivalent. Once the connection is setup, in a data connection, the majority of the systems aren't involved until it is torn down again.

That is why chat clients maintain persistent connections, and why HTTP 1.1 also encourages persistent connections. Socket setup (like all sessions) is very expensive.

Now, imagine doing that a couple of thousand times a second - where each item has to be tracked and charged. I know we charge carriers a fair chunk of $$ for the ability to do that.

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Ragnor

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#217344 24-May-2009 00:21

sbiddle: What a SMS might cost and what networks charge are two totally different issues.

jpollock

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#217354 24-May-2009 09:05

Other than economics (they charge that much because people will pay it) there are technical reasons. The cost of maintaining the SMS network is actually going up.

Essentially, it's because of how the SMS network is constructed.

1) SMS's are stored on the originator's network, and delivered direct to the destination handset. Example:

Bill on TNZ sends an SMS to Jill on VF. The SMS is stored on TNZ's network until it can be delivered to Jill's phone directly.

This means that TNZ has to be told when Jill's phone becomes available. This increases the costs on both the originator and the destination network. The costs only increase as you add more phone companies (and other organisations) that your network receives messages from.

2) SMS delivery is a trust network - one that's been broken.

Since messages from the originating network are delivered straight to the handset, SPAM becomes really easy. Get yourself a friendly foreign GSM network, and start sending messages. Heck, all you really need is an SS7 connection and a point code.

This also increases the costs to the carrier, because they get increased load on both the HLR (simplistically, Dynamic DNS for phones), and on the signalling network to the switches. To combat this, carriers are buying SMS anti-spam software which ends up doing the something approximating "greylisting" from email anti-spam. It still uses up a lot of their inter-carrier SS7 links, but it doesn't hit their internal network. At least until their next software release, they're now in an arms race.

re: Termination Charges
I've seen some math that says that since network traffic is generally bidirectional, termination charges (if symmetrical) end up at net-0 for the participating carriers. So, the termination charge is there to prop up other business (ASPs), and provide an excuse for why off-net SMS is priced higher, much like international roaming. It's sort of like a conspiracy theory in that it's an idea that's really stuck with me. :)

re: Price/Output Graph
That graph just confuses me. Things are straight that I expect to be curves, and the curves seem wrong too. :)

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sbiddle

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#217368 24-May-2009 10:43

The other issue (as has been pointed out) is that SMS's can cost as little as 1/2 a cent depending on the plan you're on. This is less than your calculated cost of an SMS based upon data charges.