The so-called $100 laptop made waves when the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit decided that cheap computers for kids could help emerging economies catch up to developed countries, by providing knowledge and other opportunities for poor children. Now, a potential $50 smart phone could do the same.

Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa today unveiled a new subsidiary called INQ, whose raison d’etre will be to make cheap smart phones rivalling Nokia, Motorola, Apple, and all the other big-name makers. That makes good sense: As Business Week noted, the company will be able to sell more� of its mobile Internet services if more people had phones with which to use them.

I like the idea of democratizing smart phones, especially since� many more people, in the United States and around the world, have mobile phone service� than they do their own Internet connection. Cheaper smart phones could thus make the Web more accessible to a broader demographic. Marketers, in turn, would be able to reach a wider range of consumers via mobile Internet. While SMS� will only get stronger in its own right,� it can also be used to promote, say, a brand’s mobile Web site that the user can finally access.

INQ also raises the question, “How much are consumers over-paying for their smart phones?” Read the rest

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A day after the news broke that Verizon Wireless was planning to increase the price on outgoing SMS messages, the carrier issued a statement trying take it back.

Verizon� now claims the 3-cent hike on outgoing text messages is just an idea. And besides, the carrier says, it would only affect aggregators, so it’s the aggregators’ fault if everyone else gets that price increase passed onto them.

That’s what it boils down to, though you have to slog through a lot of pretty words (”our friends in the nonprofit and public policy arenas”) to figure it out. Ugh. If you can stomach it, here’s the statement: Read the rest

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As if Verizon Wireless hasn’t had enough negative publicity by refusing to grant SMS short codes based on content, the U.S. cellular carrier made another PR blunder Thursday when it announced increased rates for outgoing texts.

Effective November 1, Verizon will increase the per-message price for sending texts by 3 cents. The move will ultimately double or triple the cost for marketers who send messages to opted-in subscribers, considering that marketers currently pay an average $0.025 per message sent.

“I have one word to say in reaction,” Forrester analyst Neil Strother said. “Ouch.”

Mobile marketing professionals everywhere were scrambling to make sense of the rate hike, in some cases holding emergency meetings to decide how to cope. While many are going to demand further explanation from Verizon, I have to wonder about the long-term effects on the mobile marketing industry. Could other carriers follow suit? Who will end up paying? Could this lead to all content becoming premium content–that is, that is content that people pay extra to receive? Read the rest

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Canadian texters got up-in-thumbs recently when telecom company Telus Corp. unveiled new pricing that would start charging people without data plans to receive SMS messages. Up ’til now, users without bulk plans only had to pay for outgoing texts. Faced with having to now shell out for twice as many messages, the plan-less apparently cried outrage over the possibility of having to pay for spam SMS.

Due to the outcry (I’m guessing it went something like, “You hosers!”) Telus yesterday said it would give credit to customers for each spam message they receive. Complainants simply have to forward the offending SMS with the keyword “spam” to the shortcode 7726–which conveniently also spells out the word “spam.” They’ll then get credit for the 15 cents they’d have been charged to receive the text.

I’m not sure what to think of all this. The whole thing smacks of both greed and irrational fear on the part of Canadian consumers. Read the rest

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So Morgan Stanley recently raised expectations on Apple share prices based on the most optimistic iPhone forecast I think I’ve ever seen.

The investment bank believes that Apple will sell 27 million iPhones in the calendar year 2009, at an average price of $550 per unit. All this will raise Apple stock to $210 per share, the bank concludes.

Anyone else got a problem with this picture? Here are mine:

* The much-anticipated price reduction of $199 per 8-gigabyte phone. Even the 16-gig unit is $299. How Morgan Stanley estimates revenue of $550 per phone–even� considering subsidies by AT&T–is a mystery.

* The 27 million units that Apple is expected to move. Sure, Nokia–the global handset leader–sold 14.5 million smart phones in the first quarter of this year, meaning anyone who dethrones the Scandinavians could sell something like 29 million units in a year (assuming the usurper has the same sales figures during all quarters involved) . But Apple reported selling 1.7 million units in Q12007 and� 2.3 million units during the quarter prior. It would have to increase sales almost nine-fold to meet Morgan Stanley’s prediction. With certain issues still lingering over� the iPhone, it doesn’t seem likely that Apple will toss Nokia off the mountain by next year.

* Investors elsewhere don’t seem to share Morgan Stanley’s optimism. Consider that when the cheaper, 3G iPhone debuted last week, shares fell 2.2 percent. Even today, Apple shares closed down 2.7 percent at $178.75.

What do you all think?

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In what has to be some type of Guinness Record, this guy got nailed with an $85,000 mobile phone bill. Do you think he hit the floor after opening the bill? Nope, actually, he opened the bill one month earlier and it read $65,000 and thought it was a mistake and so one Month later with $20,000 more in charges the bill ballooned to $85,000. Uh, how do you not call a Company when you believe that you have been grossly over billed? Not calling is just asking for trouble.

Bell Mobility has stepped up with some goodwill and offered to reduce the charges down to $3,243. Ouch, that’s still steep but he should be glad that they’re not sticking to their guns and looking for the full balance.

Source: Gadgetell

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Before we plow into this amazing matter of a huge mark-up on sms messages it is worth pointing out that this number is true when compared to data charges. Right then, lets stomp on…

Link: The Consumerist Says This:

Verizon and other cellphone companies mark up the cost of text messages by at least 7314% when compared to their rates for data transfer services.

Verizon’s max text message size is 160 characters. At 7 bits per character, that’s 1120 bits or 140 bytes. Without a text messaging plan, those 140 bytes run you $.15 (fifteen cents), according to Verizon’s website.

Compare that to the rate for data transfer (like when you would use your cellphone as modem). That rate is $.015 (one point five cents) every 1024 bytes.

That’s $.015 per data kilobyte versus $1.09 per text message kilobyte. In other words, a markup of 7314%. Other cellphone companies charge comparable rates.

Bytes are bytes. What makes a text-message byte so much more valuable than a straightup data byte?

Verizon didn’t return our requests for comment

Now, this is going to be a shock to a consumer… at least it would be if they had any idea about such things. Alas they are blind to most of it, including the excessive data charges that really should have vanished a year or so ago now. All the time the consumer keeps paying, the networks will keep charging.

This may not come as much of a suprise to people inside the industry as 9 times out of 10 they are making these amazing profits. We would expect them to stay quiet until questioned by the media and public en-mass. What do you think?

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