News
SMS 'more expensive than Hubble Telescope'
Stuart O'Brien May 14 2008, 11:18am
Comments (3)
It's 42 times more expensive to send a text message than it is to access data from the space telescope.
The Register reports on research carried out by Dr Nigel Bannister, a space scientist at the University of Leicester in the UK.
Using some pretty simple calculations he worked out that text messages cost about £374.49 per megabyte (assuming a 5p unit cost) - that compares to £85 per megabyte for Hubble and is a whopping 100 times more expensive that PAYG data rates on 3G and GRPS.
The research was used in Channel 4 Dispatches programme “The Mobile Phone Rip-Off”.
Comments
“Bad science at the service of poor journalism!”
Posted by: Simon (We Love Mobile) - May 14, 12:25pm
Talk about flawed logic. Text messages aren't designed to carry data, they are designed to carry messages - the clue is in the name....
We Love Mobile always recommends Text campaigns to clients looking to dip their toe into mobile marketing or advertising, because they ARE cheap, for both the senders and recipients. We've written more on this so-called research at:
http://www.welovem...p=142
Simon Liss - MD We Love Mobile
“Re: Bad science at the service of poor journalism!”
Posted by: Data Boy - May 14, 2:42pm
i'd say the research is spot on. The point is, i guess, a great many people get SMS allowances bundled with their tariff, so don't even think of the 'per unit' cost.
Equally though, while it's true that SMSes carry messages, they are fundamentally a data product (operators break them out as such in their financials) so comparing the cost to other forms of data i.e Hubble/3G seems pretty legitimate to me.
“Re: Perfectly logical”
Posted by: Sdresden - May 22, 3:41am
I use Yoober. It also works on a premise that 1KB of data is 1024 Characters of text. 1KB of data is usually much cheaper then 1 SMS - so (for those that dont have a bundled allowance) why in the world would you pay a 12 pence for a 160 character message when you can pay 1 pence for 6 times more then that!!
Anyway, i wasn't one for 'unit prices', but when put in this perspective, it makes a lot of sense!