how-to block ads
|
fees-06
@vif.net
| about time
about time the press ran with this... it's too bad it takes so damn long though... look at cell phone with "SYSTEM ACCESS FEE"... it's BULL! and I found out that it will be going up from (Bell Mobility) 6.95 / month to 8.95 / month.
And, I think, EVERY provider has the same bull$hit fee, so leaving because of it is pointless... unless you can have them drop it from your bill i guess... that will be my next attempt once i see it go up.
they must think that people just won't leave, otherwise they will have to get a new number, I don't need my number that bad. (i'm not sure if cell phone number portability is available in ontario.) | |
mr weather
Premium
join:2002-02-27
Mississauga, ON
| said by fees-06 :
(i'm not sure if cell phone number portability is available in ontario.)
It's not and probably won't be for at least another year.
Back in the analog days there really was a licence fee each subscriber had to pay for their cellular service. The Canadian government quietly dropped the requirement but the carriers (Bell, Rogers, etc.) kept the fee for themselves and morphed it into a "system access fee". And to this day you'll get CSR's who swear the SAF is government mandated. 
--
"It's all coming down!!" - Mike Holmes | |
kc5fog
join:2005-09-09
Hitchcock, TX
| "Unlimitied" data plans hazardous LOL
I hope other networks don't listen to the head of RIM.
He claims that "Unlimited" data plans are hazardous to network expansion.
»news.com.com/RIM+CEO+cautious+ab···983.html
CHICAGO--The president and co-CEO of Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry devices, warned the industry Monday that allowing people unlimited wireless data use will have a devastating effect on wireless innovation.
In a keynote address given at GlobalComm, a telecommunications trade show here, Mike Lazaridis told attendees that carriers need to be very careful how they roll out wireless Internet services.
"No matter how you slice it, bandwidth is not free," he said. "If we don't set up economic incentives now, research and innovation for new networks won't happen for the future. We want companies to be encouraged to make efficient use of the network, so we don't cross over and use up all the capacity of the networks."
Wireless operators have spent billions of dollars over the past several years upgrading their networks to 3G, or third-generation networks, so they can handle more voice calls and advanced data services. Carriers have already begun offering new applications, such as mobile Internet browsing, e-mail downloads and TV viewing to drive revenue.
Currently, all three of the major mobile carriers--Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless and Sprint--offer all-you-can-eat wireless Internet usage plans for a set price of about $80 per month. Sprint and Cingular also offer plans that charge people for the capacity they use each month.
But Lazaridis warned that as wireless data usage becomes more pervasive, these unlimited plans could have a devastating effect on the industry, since even the most basic data applications eat up more bandwidth than voice calls.
For example, an average voice plan that includes 500 minutes of airtime uses about 45MB of capacity per user per month, he said. By contrast, a user with an unlimited data plan who watches 15 minutes of video per day, reads at least three articles from a mobile Web site such as CNN.com, and checks e-mail using his company's virtual private network uses about 1.6GB worth of capacity per month. Translated into voice minutes, this amount of data usage would require roughly 20,000 minutes per month, he said.
"How do you handle pricing of these services?" he said. "The voice network was built for efficiency, and as a result, it's been properly priced and has predictable business models. We need to encourage conservation of spectrum and encourage users to use the network more efficiently for data, too."
He used Research In Motion as an example of how application developers could achieve this goal. He said roughly 90 percent of BlackBerry users use less than 2MB of data per month, which translates to about 22 minutes of airtime per month.
But some experts disagree with Lazaridis' contention. Jeff Pulver, the founder of Pulver Media, said that unlimited bandwidth use in the wireless world is needed because access to the network is what spurs innovation.
"I appreciate what he is saying," he said. "But he is discounting the future and the natural evolution of technology to provide more wireless bandwidth."
But Lazaridis said that unfettered use will destroy the economics of offering wireless data, discouraging carriers from future investments in new technologies.
"You have to let the industry grow by allowing the carriers to make money," he said. "The message here isn't that we shouldn't do new things, but that we need to have incentives for efficient usage. When you have a fiber running into your home, it is its own little universe with dedicated bandwidth, but wireless spectrum is something that we all have to share."
. | |
Vodka2
join:2005-12-20
Sacramento, CA
| He must be thinking "Thanks for the payoff".
My figures estimate your voice on 500 minutes of usage is closer to 30MB than the 45MB quoted by RIM (and I used to work at cell providers, too... not just cable and DSL)
None the less I'd have to say this guy is super alarmist.
OMG THEY'RE USING 20,000 MINUTES A MONTH! NOOOO! News flash, RIM asshole... that's 20,000 minutes a month at 2 TO 8 KBITS PER SECOND.
Meanwhile Verizon is SO happy to tout it's 700 kbit/second speeds on BroadbandAccess to sell you on it.
For the record, to download 5 Gigs or 5,242,880 KB (the cutoff) on Verizon's Network... you'd have to be able to achieve 700 kbit/s (or 87.5 kbyte/s... HAH!) for exactly 998.64 minutes... or 16.644 hours.
Or, here's a better idea: DON'T SATURATE YOUR NETWORK WITH SPEEDS YOU CANNOT SUPPORT.
People will never treat data like voice 'minutes', that's why nobody intelligent is buying per-KB plans. They need to grab presentations, surf the web, keep entertained on train rides, slam out a fast email. That's also why MANY people have thousands of night and weekend minutes, and rarely use their day minutes. Myself included.
So, any cell phone geeks out here remember just how much payload data per second you can pack into the CDMA or GSM spectrum? | |
|
