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 [1]