Smartphone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

"The price of cellular phone calls should decline more slowly in 2006 than in recent times as the duration of phone calls expands less rapidly, a top executive at Sprint Nextel Corp. said on Wednesday. U.S. operators have driven down the price of mobile phone calls in recent years as they tried to win new customers or steal each other's subscribers in the fiercely competitive market, which had as many as six national operators at one point. But as increases in the amount of time customers spend on the phone slow, operators will likely be less aggressive in lowering their prices this year, according to Len Lauer, chief operating Officer of Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. cellphone service."

Cheaper minutes might not get much cheaper, but I wonder what will happen to data plans in the USA? Based on what I've read about data plans, they've gotten better but still have a way to go - especially on the EVDO side of things. I feel a twinge of jealousy when I compare plans from American carriers with what carriers in Canada offer. It's like we're going backwards in time up here - we used to have flat-rate GPRS for about $75 a month, which at the time (2003?) was revolutionary. Since then Fido, the carrier that was offering it, was bought by Rogers, their only competitor in the GSM space, and the flat-rate pricing is no longer offered. Now rates are $100 CND ($90 USD) for 100 MB of data per month. Meanwhile I've heard of people on T-Mobile in the US getting unlimited GPRS for $4.95 a month. 8O

Europe isn't much better off with their data plans from what I know - Paul from MoDaCo in the UK was thrilled that his carrier was finally offering flat-rate plans, years after other places in the world. What about where you live? Do you feel like your rate plans have been getting cheaper, or has your usage of data plans for your Windows Mobile devices been offsetting the savings?

"The Wall Street Journal writes [Subscription only] in today�s issue that record companies are not seeing the profits once forecasted for ringtone sales. However, it may not be the business itself, but the legalities...the market for ringtones in the US is about $300 million according to the article. While that may seem large (and certainly can keep a few people employed), the market in Japan is $1 billion, despite the much smaller population of Japan."

Figures. :roll: Record companies and technology don't seem to mix - they can't get anything right, even something as simple as a short audio clip. :?