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+-   SMS 4 times more expensive than data from Hubble-> on Monday May 12 2008, @08:50AM paradoxSpirit

Submitted by paradoxSpirit on Monday May 12 2008, @08:50AM
cellphones
paradoxSpirit writes "In don't know if this qualify for an Ig Nobel (http://improbable.com/), but Physorg has a paper comparing the cost of text messaging versus the cost of getting data from Hubble Space Telescope (http://www.physorg.com/news129793047.html).

From the article: "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. 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 [$732.95] per MB — or about 4.4 times more expensive than the 'most pessimistic' estimate for Hubble Space Telescope transmission costs."

"Hubble is by no means a cheap mission — but the mobile phone text costs were pretty astronomical!""
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