@closhedbb: and your other option would be? not use cellphones at all? which means not use technology that is available for us just because cellphone companies in the US are fucking greedy and nobody in the industry or in government stands up to them and their greedy ways...
@dumanue: Yes your other option is 'don't use a cellphone'. It may come as a shock, but I'm pretty sure you can survive for at least a little while without a cellphone.
The companies will charge what the market will pay. If we all stop paying the price will come down. Everyone needs to stop blaming companies for being greedy, that is what companies are supposed to do. People invest in companies to make money on their investments. When the government moves in to control profits nobody will invest these companies any more. They can just invest in foreign companies that don't have these restrictions.
Just look at the Auto company bailout. The investors got royally screwed in that deal. By law they were secured creditors and should have been payed first when the companies filed for bankruptcy but the Government ignored the law and just took their money. I for one will not ever invest in one of those companies again.
Sorry for the long post, But people need to grow up an realize that this country is going to be a third world country in the near future if we keep going the way we are going now. It's not he Dems or the Repubs, it's all of them and all of the people who just blindly follow them because they are from the same party. People need to start paying attention to history and maybe read something besides Twitter.
The people who died to create this country more than 200 years ago would be very disappointed if they saw what we have done to this country. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very young country at 232 years old. It would not be impossible for it to just go away like so many other great civilizations have.
Now for a quote from a great man in American history:
"Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?"
Clark Griswold, from Christmas Vacation
I think a lot of the cost also comes from the fact that we get charged for incoming calls. In Europe you get charged for the calls you place and that's it. I know of only one plan that practices that called Alltel.
I did a study once of the BART system here in the Bay Area. The majority of the costs associated with extending their service lines was related to political payoffs. To lay down a mile of BART tracks, the BART officials would have to bribe every single entity along the line (businesses, churches, residents). THEN, fight in court over the possible (read:POSSIBLE) damage to a species of frog.
Point being, if you are going to compare America to another nation, you first need to take into account the massive amount of greed inherent in our system. Planting and upgrading cell towers must be an enormous cost. ENORMOUS.
@FrankenPC: i dont wanna go to san jose anyway (yes, i know the way) bart needs to stay open past 12 fucking 30. so i can; get drunk, pass out in the bushes, wake up, stumble to the station and still get home somewhere around 4:30 in the morning.
back on topic...operation costs for cell phone companies is miniscule compared to their profits. they're just fucking everyone in the butt because politicians in the united states are criminals that dont protect consumers, workers or patients.
well judging by the fact that we are about 230x bigger (US is 9,826,630 km and NDs is 41,526) then you can instantly see why. US phone providers have to have a much more massive infastructure when they roll out a new service (such as upcoming 4G) it will take billions and billions to upgrade all the towers. however in the Netherlands it wont cost anywhere near that much.
@Lazzzara: Correct, it's a density issue. But, the NDs have a population density 5X higher than the US. See [en.wikipedia.org]
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More density means more people to support a cell, means more economical deployment in "rural" areas.
@AmphetamineCrown: Although the argument completely falls apart when you compare the US to Sweden. The US has a pop density of 31/km^2, Sweden has 20/km^2. Yet the Swedes pay $137 per year vs. the americans who pay $635 per year.
@Yarr!: The argument only falls apart if the percentage of Sweden covered is the same, or greater than, the US coverage phunnyballs showed. Oh, look... See how good their 3G coverage is: [www.gsmworld.com]
@kalleboo: Eh, it was what I could find w/in the first five links provided by Google. That map is better, but still shows that they haven't got anywhere near the percentage of geographic area covered like the US.
@e-friend: Maybe because the study was making a political point?
I read somewhere that most of the reason we pay so much is that our carriers have to build their own towers, where as in Europe a company built by company X has to be shared with company Y and Z. Is this true?
@unibrow4o9: In the UK they do deals to share the towers. Some build their own in certain spots if they won't better coverage though. Dunno for rest of EU
My first thought was that the US is so much larger than those other countries. I mean, you can drive across the Netherlands in a couple hours. Certainly that would have some sort of impact on cost of infrastructure, etc. People in rural Minnesota want to be able to call their cousin in Anchorage...well, that means you have to have service in both places, people to repair towers in both places, etc.
I've considered this because I always have a cel phone on me, it's extremely rare that the battery is low, and the network uptime is great, so I'd count on it for making 911 calls if I ever had to. (And for those worried about network congestion on weekends and such, emergency calls are routed with higher priority.)
08/15/09
08/15/09
Iphone, iPOD, et al drive me crazy. The worst, though: iTouch.
(Yes, I'm a designer/grammar geek)
08/15/09
08/17/09
08/13/09
We keep paying it.
08/13/09
08/13/09
The companies will charge what the market will pay. If we all stop paying the price will come down. Everyone needs to stop blaming companies for being greedy, that is what companies are supposed to do. People invest in companies to make money on their investments. When the government moves in to control profits nobody will invest these companies any more. They can just invest in foreign companies that don't have these restrictions.
Just look at the Auto company bailout. The investors got royally screwed in that deal. By law they were secured creditors and should have been payed first when the companies filed for bankruptcy but the Government ignored the law and just took their money. I for one will not ever invest in one of those companies again.
Sorry for the long post, But people need to grow up an realize that this country is going to be a third world country in the near future if we keep going the way we are going now. It's not he Dems or the Repubs, it's all of them and all of the people who just blindly follow them because they are from the same party. People need to start paying attention to history and maybe read something besides Twitter.
The people who died to create this country more than 200 years ago would be very disappointed if they saw what we have done to this country. In the grand scheme of things, this is a very young country at 232 years old. It would not be impossible for it to just go away like so many other great civilizations have.
Now for a quote from a great man in American history:
"Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?"
Clark Griswold, from Christmas Vacation
08/13/09
08/14/09
08/13/09
08/13/09
08/13/09
Point being, if you are going to compare America to another nation, you first need to take into account the massive amount of greed inherent in our system. Planting and upgrading cell towers must be an enormous cost. ENORMOUS.
08/13/09
back on topic...operation costs for cell phone companies is miniscule compared to their profits. they're just fucking everyone in the butt because politicians in the united states are criminals that dont protect consumers, workers or patients.
08/13/09
08/13/09
08/13/09
08/13/09
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More density means more people to support a cell, means more economical deployment in "rural" areas.
08/13/09
You're just getting screwed :)
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08/14/09
@e-friend: Maybe because the study was making a political point?
08/13/09
08/13/09
Pot is legal their, come on!
08/13/09
(typo in the post)
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