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Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#61

Post by microcolonel »

dang wrote: post #60
microcolonel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are so poor because the society has no standards, and the state is organized around cultural jingoism rather than pragmatism. They are poor because people will steal anything.

Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is. It's off topic, nasty, and evokes worse. We unbanned you because you'd stopped posting comments that break the site guidelines, which is great—could you please stick to them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is.

I appreciate your patience, dang. I genuinely never intended for this to become flamebait. I have no idea why people are so nasty to eachother. I'm not promoting any form of "nationalism" here (especially not living in South Africa or having business there), I just meant to counter the idea that poverty deterministically makes people immoral, with a point that sometimes immorality will make your society poor. Whatever everyone else is talking about is their business, but I honestly don't see how I can participate at the same level of conversation as the parent comment, and not have some risk of people reading way more into it than is necessary. You say "it's nasty", but from my perspective, it's pretty nasty to say that all poor people will just steal your stuff and can't be helped; sounds like supremecism to me, even if it can come from a good place.

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#62

Post by [deleted] »

microcolonel wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is. It's off topic, nasty, and evokes worse. We unbanned you because you'd stopped posting comments that break the site guidelines, which is great—could you please stick to them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is. I appreciate your patience, dang. I genuinely never intended for this to become flamebait. I have no idea why people are so nasty to eachother. I'm not promoting any form of "nationalism" here (especially not living in South Africa or having business there), I just meant to counter the idea that poverty de…

[deleted]

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#63

Post by dang »

microcolonel wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is. It's off topic, nasty, and evokes worse. We unbanned you because you'd stopped posting comments that break the site guidelines, which is great—could you please stick to them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar or nationalistic flamewar or whatever this is. I appreciate your patience, dang. I genuinely never intended for this to become flamebait. I have no idea why people are so nasty to eachother. I'm not promoting any form of "nationalism" here (especially not living in South Africa or having business there), I just meant to counter the idea that poverty de…

"The society has no standards" and "the state is organized around cultural jingoism" are inflammatory statements, not a thoughtful exploration of the root causes of poverty in South Africa. It's important, when talking about painful and divisive topics, not to sling cheap rhetoric like that.

If you're saying that your intention was to defend poor people, I believe you; but this is not the way to express it. You'd need to provide a much more patient explanation than that, and then go over it again to take out any provocations.

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#64

Post by srg0 »

wolfi1 wrote: post #45
veddox wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the EU banned them several years back. One might consider that one of its biggest legislative triumphs :D

just inside the EU, if you are going anywhere outside it's going to be expensive again

My operator made roaming outside the EU very expensive (EUR 35 for 1 week, with a limited amount of calls and messages, and 150 MB of data traffic, yes, megabytes). But being able to use phone normally anywhere in the EU, even if only with 3G, is great. Just have to remember to disable 4G.

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#65

Post by marios »

netsharc wrote: post #58
veddox wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the EU banned them several years back. One might consider that one of its biggest legislative triumphs :D

And sadly it was phone companies pretending it was their benevolence, saying "Now on our network you can roam in the EU with the same tariff as back home!". I've read a new clause in an ad that lists the UK as one of these countries, with an asterisk that said only until the date of Brexit (obviously..). I wonder how much of this was due to ministers being annoyed at having to change SIM cards whenever they landed in…

Doubt it had anything to do with ministers. They probably have 'work' phones, and these are paid by 'work'. In other words, citizen's tax euros ...

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#67

Post by hkai »

cnst wrote: post #59
qwerty456127 wrote: post #51

Isn't it ridiculous how much can it cost to send an SMS over a cellular network? I would understand if they were sending a video message from Mars but it's a really small ASCII text message sent to a neighbor country in the 21-st century. The whole global telephone system needs to be re-designed.

It's not just that — SMS actually get delivered as part of the unused signalling capacity as far as the airwaves are concerned, hence the 160 7bit limitation, to fit into the existing protocols. E.g., as far as the the costs go, I'd argue that airwaves would be most expensive in something like SMS, as it's a limited and finite resource that has to be shared by everyone within a given geographic area, yet they're basi…

Why should the company sell SMS in relation to its cost? The seat selection on a plane costs literally zero for the company but people pay like 50 USD to seat at the front.

A phone company just needs to find creative ways to earn profit. Why is it evil?

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#68

Post by hkai »

Stevvo wrote: post #56
qwerty456127 wrote: post #51

Isn't it ridiculous how much can it cost to send an SMS over a cellular network? I would understand if they were sending a video message from Mars but it's a really small ASCII text message sent to a neighbor country in the 21-st century. The whole global telephone system needs to be re-designed.

It shouldn't cost anything at all. SMS piggybacks onto the signalling paths of GSM, which had 128 bytes unused, that can fit 160 characters. Your phone is sending & receiving those signals anyway, regardless of if you are sending an SMS message.

So SMS should be free and mobile companies should just charge more for data, to earn the same profit?

Re: Migrating Russian eagles run up data roaming charges

#69

Post by qwerty456127 »

hkai wrote: post #67
cnst wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that — SMS actually get delivered as part of the unused signalling capacity as far as the airwaves are concerned, hence the 160 7bit limitation, to fit into the existing protocols. E.g., as far as the the costs go, I'd argue that airwaves would be most expensive in something like SMS, as it's a limited and finite resource that has to be shared by everyone within a given geographic area, yet they're basi…

Why should the company sell SMS in relation to its cost? The seat selection on a plane costs literally zero for the company but people pay like 50 USD to seat at the front. A phone company just needs to find creative ways to earn profit. Why is it evil?

It is evil when it's unreasonably expensive. The fact just a small number of people would use it in their sane mind even though there is capacity to serve much more people at no additional expense for the provider (nor for the environment) suggests there is no reason to keep prices this high.
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