New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

man

so forgetting my personal usage pattern, which doesn't involve streaming hdd in wifi blackspots, the prices in the US are still INSANE compared to countries that are otherwise far, far more expensive to live in. i don't get it. i mean i kind of get it. but i don't.

i love imessage, never bumping up against a txt message limit again

we need to solve gun control before we can get around to telecom

I guess healthcare too. we got problems, man

i think one factor is that infrastructure costs for america are so high, it's such a big country. you really need to be a verizon or an at&t to have enough resources to cover the whole country

I kind of hate imessage sometimes although it is useful, everything seems to have unlimited texts now anyway

they manage this in russia and australia xp

what is cell service in the Australian desert like?

yeah... what's the population distribution in australia/russia like? there are like tens of thousands of small towns all over the midwest w/ populations of 10,000 each that need service

iMessage definitely saves me from being forced to pay $10 a month for a text plan, so hooray

dayo: "based"?

lil b (the based god)

i assume cell service in remote parts of australia and russia is terrible. who cares? not 99% of russians or australians. these towns "need service"? is at&t legally obliged to serve them?

if the cost of a network the problem, then it would be possible to build a network that serves 95% of the population instead of 99%, and charge $10/month, and make a fortune. the fact that no one has done that says the problem is because the cell phone market is fundamentally broken.

the UK is #15 here, america russia and austarlia are all in the bottom lower fourth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density

population dens of australia much more concentrated in partic areas than US

http://i.imgur.com/M25DAmQ.png

http://i.imgur.com/12VOVoY.gif

yours truly, 乒乓, verizon and AT&T apologist

yes, that was my actual oblique point

(can't speak to Russia and their phone infrastructure)

here's an argument why the problem shouldn't be population density: each town of 10,000 people needs a cell phone tower. you can't serve many towns with a cell phone tower, so assuming the town is not completely off the pre-existing physical grid, how far apart the towns are is irrelevant. to first order, it costs no more per person to serve 100 million people living in towns 100 miles apart than in towns 30 miles apart.

here's an argument why the problem cannot in fact be population density: no one has become a billionaire building a network that costs $10/month to use that serves "only" 95% of the population, which should be a piece of cake if the problem weren't a structural one with the market, or a legal one.

i'm using australia and russia as examples to prove that, absent structural or legal problems, it is possible to run a profitable cheap network by ignoring a few % of the population.

I think that is exactly the way that Vodafone undercuts Telstra in Australia though, by providing cheap plans but less coverage

exactly. why doesn't someone do that in the US?

well, you can always sign with t-mobile or sprint

lock-in is also a problem, since i think... all 4 of the big carriers use different technologies

hence why there are 2 different iphone models in the US, one of which is not available unlocked despite being more practical for global use

also: these networks that spend all this money serving little towns, don't actually do a good job of covering the little towns i go to in west texas. they don't do a very good job of serving big cities tbqfh. i mean you can run an advert about how you don't drop calls in cities in the US and that's considered a good use of your advertising budget?

t-mobile, the cheap one, is still expensive even if you just convert it to euros/pounds. if you compare it to the cost of living it's crazy.

yeah it's a p big mess

yeah, the CDMA/GSM thing is definitely a big part of the problem.

also i should have ordered free sim cards when they were still doing them dan. they cost $10 now afaict.

Does the widespread use of 4G in the USA explain increased cost perhaps?

yikes

for cities, i think a big problem are zoning regulations (see also why US cities [well, at least NY] can't get it together to build cheap affordable housing stock... it's hard to keep on adding cell towers

Does the widespread use of 4G in the USA explain increased cost perhaps?

― badg, Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:22 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

4G isn't really that widespread

it is possible to run a profitable cheap network by ignoring a few % of the population.

― caek, Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:10 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think that is exactly the way that Vodafone undercuts Telstra in Australia though, by providing cheap plans but less coverage

― badg, Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:14 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

this kind of exists in the form of carriers like cricket, simple talk, boost mobile, who all target 'urban' markets, but afaict they just rent time from the big 2's network

http://www.simplemobile.com/

i think we're still kind of in the deployment stages w/4G

fwiw I was not trying to defend the US system as being awesome

anyway, population density absolutely impacts Australia because you have most people living in concentrated areas, meaning more efficient use of cell towers, plus you are also talking about a population that is 15 times smaller than the US so it shouldn't be THAT surprising that you can build a cheaper network there

there's also a carrier "lock-in" for people who still actually use their phone to talk, most networks give you free minutes of mobile-to-mobile only if you're on the same network (or you're forced to put certain people on a favorites list)

yeah... even if this were true:

here's an argument why the problem shouldn't be population density: each town of 10,000 people needs a cell phone tower. you can't serve many towns with a cell phone tower, so assuming the town is not completely off the pre-existing physical grid, how far apart the towns are is irrelevant. to first order, it costs no more per person to serve 100 million people living in towns 100 miles apart than in towns 30 miles apart.

the raw # of cell towers you'd need in america vs. australia would still be by a couple of factors, i think

the day that they sell data-only plans for the iphone will be a great day

caek i think there are a few threads in the macrumors iphone forum talking about cheaper providers like simple talk etc.

probably the service in and around NYC is pretty good

ok last thing: the population of the us is 15 times bigger so there are 15 times more customers

Yeah I just remember this every time what apple should do next gets interpreted solely through the USA, which is such an effin weird telecoms market and as cook was saying just this week well under half and dropping of their revenue. Like Belgium or South Africa or something is probably a more useful country to understand well than the USA if you're trying to figure out apple under Tim cook.

iPhone already available unlocked and no-contract on Virgin Mobile, which rides Sprint's network. Think their plan is ~$35/mo.

anyway, population density absolutely impacts Australia because you have most people living in concentrated areas, meaning more efficient use of cell towers, plus you are also talking about a population that is 15 times smaller than the US so it shouldn't be THAT surprising that you can build a cheaper network there

the biggest factor iirc is getting the network out there in the first place. no problem rigging up a handful of 850 mhz cells through e.g. alice springs and no problem making money there, but linking that to the rest of the network and maintaining acceptable data speeds is costlier per capita in those regions.

indigenous communities are a whole different story though: recently some colleagues went out to wtf creek in the middle of buggery plains and saw first hand how bad landline internet speeds were there, much less any sort of reliable cell network.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-22-2013/tax-men---apple

"my point was more that the type of person who wears watches these days is more likely to be the kind of person who does so as a status symbol, not as a utility"

really?? i wear a watch because i need to know the time and i hate pulling my phone out. it's a cheapie digital, and i have three of them because i kept misplacing them, getting a new one, and then finding them.

500 MB of data a month? I go through a GB every day or so

they should really go old-timey and make a digital watch that looks like a gold Moneybags-style pocket watch with chain but it communicates via bluetooth to your phone, which also has the time on it. do you see, man!