Telstra to offer rural Australia free e-mail

[Stewart Fist]

Mark Hughes wrote:
> Now, I'm not a
> technical person and haven't followed this up carefully, but I'm told
> that 9600 is the fastest data transfer rate that the three mobile
> networks support.
> 
> If this is not correct, someone on the list with more expertise can
> clarify it, I'm sure.

Dead right
 
> So I'm wondering what is the incentive for a network (like mobiles)
> that is exclusively timed call charging to make a priority of
> increasing the supported rate of data transfer?  For voice calls, I'm
> not going to talk four times faster and therefore have shorter phone
> calls.  But a 400% faster data transfer rate on the mobile network
> would directly translate to 75% reduction in my data call costs - or
> viewed differently, a 75% reduction in call revenue for the network,
> which might or might not be offset by more usage.

Dead right
 
> Of course, if the network was owned by a public utility that did not
> have making a profit as its objective, it would not have a built-in
> incentive not to support faster data transfer rates on the
> time-charged network.

Dead right.

>   But I'm fantasising again.

Unfortunately, Dead right

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Stewart Fist - writer and columnist
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