No, I don't act like that. I'm just saying that people are acting as if they don't have to pay AT&T. The price you're paying for the iPhone is relatively small compared to what you'll be paying AT&T in two years time. That's what I'm saying. People should focus on that.
I think the largest chunk of your phone bill goes to paying for the Billions of dollars that AT&T had to pay (or finance) for the millions of cell phone towers, base stations, and network equipment to hook it all up. Last summer, we went on a road trip across the United States (I live in California), and to our surprise, every major highway was lined with cell phone antennas every two miles or so. THOUSANDS of antennas (on just the route that we drove). There must be several million antennas nationwide (the iPhone plan is a nationwide plan), each with a base station (think of a computer server with hundreds of plugs and wires), and all of the antennas connected with cable underground. During the entire (almost) road trip, I had internet access on my iPhone3G. Out in "the middle of no where," nothing but corn fields for hundreds of miles in every direction, I had Edge internet access. Yeah, out in the middle of nowhere. THAT is what the majority of your cell phone bill goes to ... paying for those Billions of dollars in antennas, base stations, underground cables, and network equipment. Now, here's another interesting concept to think about ... how much electricity do you think it takes to keep all of that turned on, 24/7 ?
Now, look at it this way: there are ~15 million iPhone users (that's what someone on MacRumors said. Correct me if I am wrong). So, take that cost and divide it by 15 million (that's for your data service) plus the Blackberry users. For the voice plan, AT&T has 70 million users (this fact I got from Forbes magazine), so don't forget that also. Let's do some simple math:
70mill times $39.99/month (yeah, I know some people pay more) = $2.8 Billion. 20mill (for example) times $30.00 data plan = $600 Million. So, added together, AT&T brings in about $3.4 Billion per month (and that doesn't include text messages, which I'm sure adds about 10 percent on this). Let's say total monthly income is $3.75 Billion. Okay. I'll bet you that nationwide cell phone network probably cost AT&T around $100 Billion (don't forget that people also had to be paid to develop, build, and install it). And, AT&T is also in the process of upgrading Edge antennas to 3G and upgrading 3G from 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mpbs (which likely requires additional network equipment and capacity). $100 Billion divided by $3.75 Billion is 27 months (and this calculation does not include AT&T employees, engineers, customer service, research and development, crews that repair and maintain the network, advertising, and so forth. So, lets extend that 27 months to three years. Okay, well ... the Edge network was there three years ago ... but iPhone income was not, and AT&T likely did not have 70 million voice users back then. Texting hadn't become trendy yet. So, basically, we are paying today for the equipment that we are using today ... and AT&T is also spending that money to upgrade the remaining Edge antennas to 3G, and will be upgrading the urban 3G from 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mbps beginning this fall.
So, here is the bottom line: We could pay only $20 per month for data, but there won't be as much money to continue to upgrade Edge antennas to 3G, and there won't be as much money to upgrade the 3.6Mbps 3G to 7.2Mbps 3G. You have to decide: low price and no network upgrades, or pay the current price and the network will continue to be upgraded.
