http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/t...rs-use-half-of-worlds-wireless-bandwidth.html
Interesting story from today's NY Times.
Interesting story from today's NY Times.
Top 1% of Mobile Users use half of world's bandwidth
- Thread starter rockymtnhigh
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Not necessarily. The fact that such a small number of users suck up so much bandwidth is rationale enough for them to impose caps. Ultimately I end up paying more because a small number horde massive amounts of bandwidth.
If you want to stream audio and video all day long, fine. Pay for it.
If you want to stream audio and video all day long, fine. Pay for it.
Disagree. If they allow unlimited use of Data then they need to meet their obligation. Instead of placing a cap to bring the top down. They need to expand their infrastructure to allow more to reach the top without hindering others. Progress is made by increasing the resources to meet the demand, not by capping resources to hold everyone down to the same level.
I do agree here. If you want more then you should pay more. But where we may differ is if they are paying for more, including unlimited, then it is the responsibility of the carrier to fulfill their end of the contract as well.
The article was pretty poorly written. It seemed like a phone company or perhaps some analyst pushing a phone company stock was trying to build support for caps. They even go as far as to try to tie in oil and gas usage to greedy countries as an example of this being bad behavior?
Yes 1%, but they were talking about all mobile users. Not just users with data plans. In fact they mentioned 87% of the worlds phones were not smart phones. So, in reality it looks like they are saying that 1/13 of smartphone users use half the data. This is a much different picture. Interesting that AT&T launched LTE in the NYC market yesterday, the same day this article ran...
I bet if you took Europe, the US and Japan less than 1/7 the world's population would use 95%+ of the mobile internet... How scandalous! Of course usage is where it is available and cheap.
Again it looks like AT&T had its fingerprints on this. If you notice in the article EU operators are talking extra measures including installing microcells near heavy users to off load the network. Do you hear the cries for caps? No, in the EU there is more competition, unlimited plans for $6.4/month. And the operators are investing to build market share and handle the load. In the US all they do is moan and cap, when in fact it is easier in the US. Our population is not as dense. Which means that there is much more potential bandwidth. Remember how much trouble AT&T had a couple years back with NYC and SF? Most big cities in the EU have densities like that, and their operators somehow manage to build more towers to split the load and handle it.
Yes 1%, but they were talking about all mobile users. Not just users with data plans. In fact they mentioned 87% of the worlds phones were not smart phones. So, in reality it looks like they are saying that 1/13 of smartphone users use half the data. This is a much different picture. Interesting that AT&T launched LTE in the NYC market yesterday, the same day this article ran...
I bet if you took Europe, the US and Japan less than 1/7 the world's population would use 95%+ of the mobile internet... How scandalous! Of course usage is where it is available and cheap.
Again it looks like AT&T had its fingerprints on this. If you notice in the article EU operators are talking extra measures including installing microcells near heavy users to off load the network. Do you hear the cries for caps? No, in the EU there is more competition, unlimited plans for $6.4/month. And the operators are investing to build market share and handle the load. In the US all they do is moan and cap, when in fact it is easier in the US. Our population is not as dense. Which means that there is much more potential bandwidth. Remember how much trouble AT&T had a couple years back with NYC and SF? Most big cities in the EU have densities like that, and their operators somehow manage to build more towers to split the load and handle it.
To be fair, I think the local governments in the EU are more receptive to new towers, even if disguised. It is my understanding that NYC & SF are outright hostile, and permitting is a LONG drawn out nightmare.
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That may be true, but why do they want to cap in the rest of the US? Perhaps NYC and SF would change their attitudes if AT&T and VZ only capped in those areas... Text message: sorry you are exceeding the data cap for NYC due to limited tower permitting, you will be charged $10 for the next X amount of data...
I bet there would be a revolt and permitting would be a lot easier.
The problem is that the utility regulatory commissions that need to approve the new towers are the same ones that would need to approve the new charges.
Which is exactly why all of the carriers are heading away from unlimited service.
Most businesses these day now have on site wifi and the same with most of us at home. So why don't this top 1% understand they should be surcharged, capped and pay more than the rest of us; like me whom only use 25% of his 2gb of data on my iphone last month because I have it set to use wifi first. You suck up all the bandwidth you should pay for it.
The problem is that it is not a problem in Europe where the cell phone companies work to provide the capacity needed for unlimited at lower prices. Note that all the talk of capping is in North America. Canada started it all with their near monopoly, they capped home broadband and wireless all the time. US providers have tried to follow both at home and cellular connections. Not that there is really a bandwidth shortage, but a shortage of the companies investing.
Home broadband costs less than 1 cent per GB to deliver. The capping is just trying to protect video revenues and generate more profit. Cellular is closer to 10 cents. If they charged overages at a 100% markup, $1 should get you 5 more GB (i.e. 20 cents).
I would be happy to pay realistic rates for my data consumption. I pay $30 for unlimited. If it were say limited to 10GB (i.e. $1 in real cost to the phone company and the rest for overhead and profit) then $1 for each 5GB I go over, fine. Everyone would make money. And they demonstrate it works in EU. In fact they say go ahead and be unlimited because few are ever going to use 300GB a month that a $30 bill would cover.
The same goes for the home market. Charge me $20 for a 50 mbit connection and then 2 cents a GB.
Also it is not the top 1% it actually 7.6%+ since they were counting world wide cell phone users of which 87% do not even have a data plan.
Like I mentioned above this was writting to try to make people mad thinking that some small group is driving everyones bill up by sucking down all the data in the world. When in reality the heaviest use customers are in Europe and they have no issue. This seems like a plant from AT&T or VZ to try to justify their lack of investment and near duopoly status. Poor Sprint is trying, but they are losing out on all the overage charges.
Why are you having to buy 2GB of data every month when you only use 500MB? Because AT&T knows that most their customers cannot live on the 200MB plan, so they priced accordingly to max profits.
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Here is why, and who uses all that bandwidth.
New iPhone doubles data consumption: study | Reuters
Note how consumption went up from iPhone 3 to 4, and then way up to 4S.
It's all Apple's fault! - :up -
New iPhone doubles data consumption: study | Reuters
Note how consumption went up from iPhone 3 to 4, and then way up to 4S.
It's all Apple's fault! - :up -
Mike123,
That price you are quoting for data delivery includes no costs for infrastructure or amortized plant/last mile costs. There are terrific long and mid term costs associated with both of those that needs to be factored in.
They are often overlooked, but should not be.
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That price you are quoting for data delivery includes no costs for infrastructure or amortized plant/last mile costs. There are terrific long and mid term costs associated with both of those that needs to be factored in.
They are often overlooked, but should not be.
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That is true, but AT&T has managed to squeak out a 39.95 billion dollar EBITDA over the last 4 quarters even with all those data hogs. One notices that while VZ decided to put in data caps, they were not complaining about being out of bandwidth and their customers seemed to not be complaining about their network. They also got the iphone now and it did not collapse their network either... Hmm could it be that AT&T simply has under invested in their network for years, using it as a cash cow and then come up with some fake crisis excuse to try to buy out a competitor to just get more control of the market without investing in more towers and backhaul? It is also true that AT&T (well until VZs approval to buy the cable company spectrum) has the most spectrum of all the carriers and is sitting on the most unused frequencies.
Maybe someone will finally do something with T-Mobile. They just got a huge present from AT&T. Will they use it to build out a nice LTE network to compete with the others?
If there was real competition in the US, it would be like Europe where companies are all pushing unlimited at low rates and putting a resonable amount back into the network to builld it out to handle the capacity.
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