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 swintecPremium,VIP
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME
kudos:3
 ·RapidVPS
 ·Sprint Mobile Br..
 ·VoicePulse
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to iansltx
Re: If its not Free, I'm not going to have it. said by iansltx:So their costs, while they don't disappear, go WAY down. By how much do they go down? Also, since you are privy to costs of calls using both types of systems, how much does a 5 minute call to a POTS line using your cell phone and a normal tower cost, and how much does that same call cost while connected to a femtocell (please figure in the costs of the equipment it is being routed through).
You also somewhat proved my point, yes it turns them into VoIP providers, but do you know of any VoIP providers that provide unlimited outgoing minutes for nothing? Exactly. We all know why they don't, they have a lot of equipment to support and maintain, not to mention to pay termination costs. Did you expect cell companies to design and implement VoIP systems (with much more robust ATA's at that) and allow customers to make calls on them, all for nothing?
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Comcast
| You're forgetting that AT&T is already getting $40+ per month (or $10+ per month on a family add-a-line) for service. So they're getting paid for the infrastrucure.
An unlimited cellular plan (voice) is now hovering around $40 per month. Of course this is Verizon and not AT&T but the point stands.
VoIP has a premium of about $10 per month between minute-limited and unlimited service. There are VoIP providers that have unlimited service for under $20 per month.
As such, my estimate is that unlimited calling on femtocell pricing should be at most $10 per line for any cellular provider. Again, the $10 is a marginal cost; AT&T is already getting at least $40 per month from you for a contract plan, probably a good bit more.
For added coverage, the femtocell should be offered for free as a retention tool, or as a monthly charge or upfront purchase for ormal customers. This is in alignment with normal billing practices for extra features. The $5 per month or so would be simply for rental of the device, not per se as an addon to the person's cellular plan.On the buying side of things, the 'cell should probably be subsidized so its price is in the $100-$125 range or people won't pick it up.
On the data side of things, the femtocell should allow for unlimited data if the connection just dumps onto a customer's regular network. If there's a VPN tunnel involved even for data I can understand why this wouldn't be the case, but even then data allotments should be increased because AT&T doesn't have to spend any money between the consumer and their own backbone network to get traffic to where it needs to go. Even then pricing is about $5 per Mbit at most, or a few cents per GB... | |
| reply to swintec
I sure do. Google voice.
Magic Jack is $20/year though so I suppose $3/mo is fair. Considering I am not tying up their network it seems very fair | |
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