In a study done on mobile phones, Dr. Nigel Bannister, a
space scientist at the University of Leicester, has calculated that sending
text messages using cellular phones is more costly than transmitting data from
the Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, it is more than 4 times more
expensive!

He states:

“The maximum size for a text
message is 160 characters, which takes 140 bytes because there are only 7 bits
per character in the text messaging system, and we assume the average price for
a text message is 5p [about $.10]. There are 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte, so
that's 1 million/140 = 7490 text messages to transmit one megabyte. At 5p each,
that's £374.49 [about $728.14] per MB - or about 4.4 times more expensive than
the ‘most pessimistic’ estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission
costs.”

It is astounding to find out that
sending and receiving messages from outer space is cheaper than sending
messages with my cell phone. This means than if I was in space, and I wanted to
say “Hi” to my mom, it would be cheaper than if I were to send her a text
message on earth. This just shows that mobile phone service providers are
charging too much – I’d rather use NASA to send messages! It also makes me
wonder about other services that I use: broadband internet, cable television,
landline phone, etc. Are their prices and charges fair? Or are they inflating
prices for standard service?

Dr. Nigel Bannister’s study was used for the UK
program, “The Mobile Phone Rip-Off”

The article about this study can be found here:
http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html