[paulsecwhatt]

Europeans never paid for speed, that's completely incorrect. There's no tradeoff - mobile phone usage in Europe is simply much, much cheaper because there's not the same quadrupoly that exists in the US (thanks to government intervention and much stricter competitivity laws).

That's an interesting attempt to justify the price, but it completely fails to take into account that simply calculating area is nowhere near accurate for the number of towers - it depends on where people live. Fortunately people live close together, so towers don't need to cover every square inch of the country.

If you look up the number of towers, you'll find that the US has roughly 120,000 mobile base stations, while the UK has 23,000. (Despite the fact that the UK is ~30 time smaller than the US). So your argument does not hold.

On another note, I'll never understand how people think that you get "low to no cost upgrades" of hardware. You don't. You're literally paying _more_ to upgrade your phone/get a new phone in the long run, than just buying one outright. The reason you can buy an iPhone for 99 USD is because you'll be paying ~27 USD "extra" for the next 2 years, which is exactly the same as if you had just spent 600 outright and saved that amount (or even more, 99% of the time) over the next 2 years. There's no "subsidization" going on, if anything, you're subsidizing the company.

[Aloha]

Current stats show 205,000k[1] towers - not base stations, I'd estimate closer to 410,000-840,000 mobile base stations. Figure most of those are not all four carriers on each site, some are just one carrier, some are all four, and if I were to pick a single number, 585,000. Previously, I'd suggest that you can really only compare the US with Canada, Australia in terms of population density and spread.

[1] http://www.statisticbrain.com/cell-phone-tower-statistics/

[unprepare]

> Europeans never paid for speed, that's completely incorrect.

https://www.dna.fi/liittymat https://kauppa.saunalahti.fi/#!/matkapuhelinliittymat

I understand that theres a lot of variety in Europe, but to say that tiers by speed doesn't happen is factually incorrect.

>There's no tradeoff

I never said there was, I am simply pointing out differences in how the markets are set up and function in these vastly different continents

>there's not the same quadrupoly that exists in the US

This is true, this is the biggest problem with the US cellular market today

>That's an interesting attempt to justify the price

I'm not trying to justify anything, just explain some of the differences.

>but it completely fails to take into account that simply calculating area is nowhere near accurate for the number of towers - it depends on where people live

It depends on hundreds of factors - population density, building density, building materials, types of cellular radios used (CDMA vs GSM have different ranges), terrain, interference, number of carriers, etc

The difference in land area is definitely a factor - i never said it was the only one. My mistake was obviously saying '26 times more towers', which i admit was a careless thing to say, but i think it still made my point. The US has significantly more infrastructure than any single european country, in part due to its much larger coverage area.

>Fortunately people live close together, so towers don't need to cover every square inch of the country.

Much truer in Europe than in the US - US: 32.65/sq km UK: 262/sq km [1]

>If you look up the number of towers, you'll find that the US has roughly 120,000 mobile base stations

I see 205,000[2] - which puts the US at ~10 times the towers of the UK

>So your argument does not hold. do you think that the cost of ~10 times more infrastructure is not part of the higher prices in the US compared to the UK? My argument was that having to spend much greater amounts on infrastructure is one of the reasons for a price difference, i didn't say it was the only reason or explanation just that it's worth noting.

>I'll never understand how people think that you get "low to no cost upgrades" of hardware.

This is just the psychology of purchasing. People don't like spending a lot of money at once and would prefer to spread costs out over time - I completely agree that the 'subsidized' model is garbage, but i haven't been able to convince a single family member to switch to buying phones outright no matter how many times i show them the lower cost after the full two years. Of course by low to no cost i meant when you walk into the provider's location after two years, you walk out with a new phone that you paid very little for during that transaction. It doesn't seem to matter to most people that they end up paying more than the phones full retail cost over the course of two years.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de... [2]http://www.statisticbrain.com/cell-phone-tower-statistics/

[lorenzhs]

Finland accounts for around 1% of the EU population, that's hardly enough to make claims about "Europe". Speed tiers don't happen in most countries (I can say this with certainty for the UK and Germany).