Phones // Current

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16 days ago

The World’s First Touch Watch Phone

LG’s G910 Touch Watch phone, available later this year, is a mere 13.9mm thick and features a full touch-screen interface,... more

whitespacecarpet
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Star Trek communicator app for iPhone

One of the most anachronistic parts of the new Star Trek film is seeing the characters use those ridiculous communicators - I... more

Psythor
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Nokia N97 on its way to the UK at last

Nokia will be launching the N97 in the UK on June 19th either SIM-free for £499, or if you can wait a week, however much you... more

Psythor
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Judge blocks 'robo-calls' selling car warranties

CHICAGO -- A federal judge has issued two temporary restraining orders designed to stop what officials describe as a wave of... more

gh8643
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Green party advocates one big phone network to save energy

This is a great idea by the Green Party - they want the government to force the mobile phone networks to merge their network of... more

Psythor
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iSnort Iphone Demo - Cocaine Application

This is a demonstration of doing lines of cocaine on your Apple iPhone / iTouch. This is a taste of technology that makes you... more

toreyray
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Touch Screens with Pop-up Buttons

"Touch-screen technology has become wildly popular, thanks to smart phones designed for nimble fingers. But most touch... more

DeliaTheArtist
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Nokia lays off more workers, opens up to third-party apps

April 28, 2009 (IDG News Service) Nokia Corp. announced today that it will lay off another 450 employees in the wake of a 27%... more

ClipsFC
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Gadgets straight from Tokyo

A sneak peek at the latest high-tech gadgets from Tokyo. I'm loving the KDDI's Iida Design Phone, looks sexy.

Mista_G
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1 Million Google Android Phones sold by T-Mobile

T-Mobile’s Google Android smartphone has reached an incredibly important milestone, reaching one million in US sales in the... more

Anyother
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Motorola's 'Alexander' not so great, dropped

It seems Motorola's Alexander phone isn't all that great after all, they've reportedly dropped the upcoming model... more

mattbrawn
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T-Mobile G1 Commercial - OFFICE MEETING - Current TV VCAM

Most of the solutions we seek are available online. The bad news is that, until now, you could only get the full Internet... more

DonQ
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Second 'Google phone' is unveiled

Google's venture into the world of mobile phones got another boost today, as the second handset running their operating... more

mattbrawn
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Lego to launch a mobile phone?

Some prototype photos of a phone by Lego and Alcatel have been leaked online. The casing is made up of colourful bricks that you... more

abbym0308
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New touchscreen Nokias revealed? Lets have a look...

The Finnish giant phone maker hasn't unveiled any official word on the two handsets. For what it's worth, we might hear... more

Bad_Melon
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Beam me up Scotty... crazy top-secret phone!

"Put this slug behind your ear and don't worry if you lose it!" Crazy top secret phone developed in... more

philparkin
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The $30 "Yes We Can" Kenyan celebratory Mi-Obama mobile phone

Mi-Fone, a Kenyan mobile phone supplier, have created a Barack Obama themed phone, apparently to "forge new frontiers in... more

purplefox
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About those text message fees...

Remember when you used to pay a dime for a text message... or maybe even a nickel? And now you likely pay 20 cents a pop, coming and going. Everyone complains about text prices (unless you're on volume, per-month plan), but in the end we always assume it's part of the cost of doing business... that carriers have had to raise prices because their costs have been increasing. How else after all to explain 100 percent price inflation in the last three years?

Perplexed, Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl looked into the matter, polling the four major U.S. wireless carriers about their text message pricing policies. The result? Quite the runaround, stonewalling, and misdirection. And there's no surprise why carriers don't want to talk much about the issue: Text messages don't cost much to transmit.

How little do text messages really cost? The truth is that they're so tiny -- 160 characters is the usual max -- they functionally cost nothing at all. Yes, carriers need to invest in hardware and infrastructure to deal with the messages, but all of that was put in place long ago (and well before the price hikes began in earnest). As a point of reference, today a $100 hard drive can store about a billion text messages. Transmission costs are even less than that and decrease with scale. According to one computer science prof who's studied the matter: "Operating costs are relatively insensitive to volume. It doesn’t cost the carrier much more to transmit a hundred million messages than a million."

The very best part of this discussion comes at the end of the New York Times piece that blows the lid off one of the biggest scams going in the telecom space: "Once one understands that a text message travels wirelessly as a stowaway within a control channel, one sees the carriers’ pricing plans in an entirely new light. The most profitable plan for the carriers will be the one that collects the most revenue from the customer: unlimited messaging, for which AT&T and Sprint charge $20 a month and T-Mobile, $15. Customers with unlimited plans, like diners bringing a healthy appetite to an all-you-can-eat cafeteria, might think they’re getting the best out of the arrangement. But the carriers, unlike the cafeteria owners, can provide unlimited quantities of 'food' at virtually no cost to themselves -- so long as it is served in bite-sized portions."

What's next? The price-fixing lawsuits, 20 of which have already been filed around the countryRemember when you used to pay a dime for a text message... or maybe even a nickel? And now you likely pay 20 cents a pop, coming... more