

Ask HN: what costs more? a 1 kB email or an SMS? - dotcoma

Does it cost more or less to GMail to send a 1 kB email compared to what it costs a mobile operator to send an SMS? My guess is that a 1kB email is cheaper, but does anybody know how much cheaper? (or more expensive)
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ismarc
The cost is all about scale. an email is going to cost whatever your metered
rate is for the traffic (well, technically 2x the metered rate, once for
incoming, once for outgoing traffic). For Google's infrastructure and typical
bandwidth usage, the cost trends to zero. An SMS message is sent as a packet
of data in the control channel to your phone. The cost of an individual SMS
message is not as easy to determine as the cost of an email. Your phone
exchanges packets of data on the control channel whether you're receiving (or
sending) SMS message or not. The SMS message is an additional piece of data
that is sent over a constrained channel. In most areas, the towers will be
able to easily handle the peak usage of the area without any degradation of
service, meaning the towers can easily handle the traffic. However, unlike
email, the more SMS messages are sent, the more expensive each individual one
is since the tower has to be able to handle that number of simultaneous
control channels.

While the cost per SMS does go down as a mobile carrier expands their network,
it uses a separate channel from the voice and data, but the same channel your
phone uses to negotiate a connection with the tower and to migrate between
towers. The premium paid for SMS messages on your phone bill is due to this.

I'm not saying that the cost charged for SMS messages reflects their actual
delivery costs to the provider, just that there is a real, measurable cost
associated with each SMS message. Essentially, the question you're asking is
"What costs more, a gallon of milk or driving to work?"

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dotcoma
interesting to know - I had no clue - that SMS messages use "the same channel
your phone uses to negotiate a connection with the tower and to migrate
between towers", and that it is a separate channel the one that handles voice
and data.

I know, my question is very much apples vs oranges. My question is something
like: if I could use email as a perfect substitute for SMS messages, would I
(a web startup) be able to compete in a downward spiral on price against
operators?

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AutomatedTester
In terms of paying for it as a user

SMS is more expensive to send. It normally costs around £0.03 per thousand to
send emails when it costs around that to send that for 1 sms.

In terms as a provider

For GMail they tend to store an email at least 6x to make sure you never lose
something. This means the cost of an email is actually 6kb plus all the cost
to store, replicate and the electricity that goes with it. While with the SMS
the provider is really cheap as it doesnt use that much bandwidth to send and
receive it.

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dotcoma
so, GMail more expensive?

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grk
From what I've heard, once a mobile operator builds the infrastructure, the
cost of sending SMS is zero. The traffic they generate is negligible compared
to voice, so charging for texts is pure income. That is, assuming you've paid
off your infrastructure :)

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dotcoma
so, once the infrastructure is there, GMail is more expensive?

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swah
Over 9000. If both accounts are from Gmail its even cheaper...

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dotcoma
a 1 kB email is 9,000 times cheaper? Can you please point to any sort of
evidence for this please? Thx.

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alnayyir
He was making a sarcastic memetic reference.

Your question isn't very answerable.

Ask a more specific or meaningful question.

