4 ms·

As an aside, it doesn't cost more to call a cell phone for any reason other than "Because people will pay more". If anything, mobile networks are less troubles

by EwanToo 14y ago

As an aside, it doesn't cost more to call a cell phone for any reason other than "Because people will pay more". If anything, mobile networks are less troublesome to maintain than fixed line networks, the equipment needs a lot less human interaction, and generally cost much less to run. If you were building a voice only telephone network today, it would not involve wires into people's houses.

beagle3 14y ago
> If you were building a voice only telephone network today, it would not involve wires into people's houses. That's something that is easy to agree about, however, > As an aside, it doesn't cost more to call a cell phone for any reason other than "Because people will pay more". That's something that is hard to argue unless you have an insider's breakdown of the costs, and assumptions about the cost of capital. (specifically, with all the wires already in place, it is NOW, for the landline company cheaper to use that infrastructure - the costs have already paid by an entity which has gone bankrupt or otherwise wrote it down)
- EwanToo 14y ago
  Well clear numbers are pretty hard to get yes, but BT Openreach is a good source of data, as a government forced wholesaler of land line services. Ofcom has set the current price of wholesale line rental (i.e. a land line only service, no broadband), at £98.81 for 2012-2013. [1] This price gives Openreach a small operating profit, but not much at all. Remember that Openreach employs 19,000 field engineers to maintain the UK phone network, it's a massively expensive task. [2] A mobile network has much less fixed infrastructure, and with it comes much lower costs, even disregarding the actual cost of laying wires (as you say, that's largely been paid for now, even the BT FTTC roll out is "only" costing £2.5 billion, or about £100 per home in the UK) 1 - http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/02/06/ofcom-proposes-new-wholesale-charge-controls-for-openreach/?lang=cy http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/02/06/ofcom-proposes-new-whol... 2 - http://www.btplc.com/mobile/Careercentre/Meetourpeople/People/RebeccaGreen.htm http://www.btplc.com/mobile/Careercentre/Meetourpeople/Peopl...
  - EwanToo 14y ago
    Not sure why this comment in particular got downvoted, bizarre..
  - beagle3 14y ago
    Not sure why this was downvoted (I upvoted, for giving hard data, even if I think the reasoning is flawed). I don't think these numbers are at all helpful - without taking into account e.g. how much openreach paid for the infrastructure it is using (did it inherit? did it create all?). Also, the efficiency of openreach is an unknown that makes every other number moot. They employ 19,000 employees, but that does not mean that a similar level of service cannot be reached with 5,000. I suspect that your basic claim as I understand it: That if we started TODAY, wireless would be cheaper. But I can't tell if it's true when you ignore all sunk costs everywhere - which, practically, you do.
    - EwanToo 14y ago
      Openreach inherited the original infrastructure yes, it was built when it was owned by the UK government, then passed to BT, then Openreach (a BT subsidiary). Openreach have since been responsible for the upkeep, and are rolling out fibre to the cabinet using largely BT's own money, rather than government funded. As to their efficiency, well I'm not sure who else has as similar setup of firewalls between their retail business (BT selling to normal people and businesses), wholesale business (sells to ISPs and telcos), and network infrastructure (sells to BT wholesale and larger telcos), so it is a hard one to judge, but if they could do it with 5,000 people, I'm not sure why they wouldn't. Over the years BT have got rid of an awful lot of staff, they're definitely more efficient now than they have been previously.

by EwanToo 14y ago

beagle3 14y ago

> If you were building a voice only telephone network today, it would not involve wires into people's houses. That's something that is easy to agree about, however, > As an aside, it doesn't cost more to call a cell phone for any reason other than "Because people will pay more". That's something that is hard to argue unless you have an insider's breakdown of the costs, and assumptions about the cost of capital. (specifically, with all the wires already in place, it is NOW, for the landline company cheaper to use that infrastructure - the costs have already paid by an entity which has gone bankrupt or otherwise wrote it down)

EwanToo 14y ago
Well clear numbers are pretty hard to get yes, but BT Openreach is a good source of data, as a government forced wholesaler of land line services. Ofcom has set the current price of wholesale line rental (i.e. a land line only service, no broadband), at £98.81 for 2012-2013. [1] This price gives Openreach a small operating profit, but not much at all. Remember that Openreach employs 19,000 field engineers to maintain the UK phone network, it's a massively expensive task. [2] A mobile network has much less fixed infrastructure, and with it comes much lower costs, even disregarding the actual cost of laying wires (as you say, that's largely been paid for now, even the BT FTTC roll out is "only" costing £2.5 billion, or about £100 per home in the UK) 1 - http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/02/06/ofcom-proposes-new-wholesale-charge-controls-for-openreach/?lang=cy http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/02/06/ofcom-proposes-new-whol... 2 - http://www.btplc.com/mobile/Careercentre/Meetourpeople/People/RebeccaGreen.htm http://www.btplc.com/mobile/Careercentre/Meetourpeople/Peopl...
- EwanToo 14y ago
  Not sure why this comment in particular got downvoted, bizarre..
- beagle3 14y ago
  Not sure why this was downvoted (I upvoted, for giving hard data, even if I think the reasoning is flawed). I don't think these numbers are at all helpful - without taking into account e.g. how much openreach paid for the infrastructure it is using (did it inherit? did it create all?). Also, the efficiency of openreach is an unknown that makes every other number moot. They employ 19,000 employees, but that does not mean that a similar level of service cannot be reached with 5,000. I suspect that your basic claim as I understand it: That if we started TODAY, wireless would be cheaper. But I can't tell if it's true when you ignore all sunk costs everywhere - which, practically, you do.
  - EwanToo 14y ago
    Openreach inherited the original infrastructure yes, it was built when it was owned by the UK government, then passed to BT, then Openreach (a BT subsidiary). Openreach have since been responsible for the upkeep, and are rolling out fibre to the cabinet using largely BT's own money, rather than government funded. As to their efficiency, well I'm not sure who else has as similar setup of firewalls between their retail business (BT selling to normal people and businesses), wholesale business (sells to ISPs and telcos), and network infrastructure (sells to BT wholesale and larger telcos), so it is a hard one to judge, but if they could do it with 5,000 people, I'm not sure why they wouldn't. Over the years BT have got rid of an awful lot of staff, they're definitely more efficient now than they have been previously.