Tired of feeling second rate because Europe and Asia has faster
Internet service for less money? Then don't look at your cell phone,
because DSL Reports' story, Consumers in U.S., Canada Pay More for Wireless,
describes how US cell phone carriers charge us five times more than
they charge Europeans. Except the Spanish, the unlucky European country
that gets charged American rates for some reason.
Want the lowest rates? Move to the
Netherlands, where they pay $131.44 per year versus what we pay in the
U.S. for the same service, $635.85.
Of course, the cell phone companies say
we're actually getting a great deal for a great price, notwithstanding
paying five times more for the same service as in the Netherlands or
Sweden ($137.94 per year). We just aren't looking at the numbers quite
right. Which numbers? They didn't say. I'm guessing the executive bonus
money pool.
Or maybe the U.S. cell phone carriers
would like to explain why text messaging prices have jumped 200 percent
in two years. Since texts are transferred over tower control channels
that exist for the small traffic to manage towers leaving huge amounts
of free bandwidth for texting, the profit margins are wonderful for the
phone companies. They pay nothing for a text, you pay 20 cents. Isn't
that fair?
Perhaps one day the carriers will have
so many lobbyists one of them will explain to the media how they come
up with their pricing levels. Right now, however, the lobbyists are too
busy cajoling our elected leaders for more billions in stimulus money.
Not for us, of course, but for the executive bonus money pool.
By: James Gaskin for 
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