On 18/07/2019 07:02, Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 17/07/2019 20:44, wrote:


Ones where the credit rolls over and you don't have to make a regular
calls to keep them alive, aren't quite as common as you claim. The
networks hate them because they tend to get used in "glovebox" phones
were they have all the costs of maintaining the number and the billing
records, for virtually no revenue.

Oh come on, its costs them precisely £0.00 to maintain a number, its
simply
data in a database.



And you are qualified to say that how?Â* Who supplies the database, and
on what license terms (hint: it's often on a per slot basis) - and
that's before we get to the overall costs where there may not be a net
gain per subscriber, but they have to be paid anyway - the radio
network, the data centres, the backhaul, the support staff, customer
services, Ofcom, etc etc etc.

Ok, answer me this -if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still
exist..?

--
Ria in Aberdeen

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On Thu, 18 Jul 2019 13:32:23 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:07:01 on
Thu, 18 Jul 2019, David Walters remarked:
On Wed, 17 Jul 2019 19:03:26 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:15:25 on
Wed, 17 Jul 2019, David Walters remarked:
Ooh, that's a bit strong..! What's wrong with old phones, anyway..?

For a 'dumbphone', not a lot.

Using a smartphone once it no longer receives security patches isn't
something I would do personally.

What's the main threat you are trying to avoid?

Mostly some malware getting installed via a remote or drive-by
vulnerability.

What kinds of drive-by malware has been known to be delivered via apps
like Facebook and Twitter?

I'm not aware of any but I use many other apps on my smartphone such
as Chrome which has had bugs exploited in the past. One example is at
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016...droid-malware/.
That still requires an extra step but a similar bug might not.

What is the malware trying to achieve.

Perhaps it will be combined with some kind of permissions exploit that
means it can harvest data from other apps which in my case would include
my banking details/tokens. I could not have banking apps on my smartphone
but I choose to for the convenience and balance some of the risk by
having an up to date OS. Your choice might be different.

On 17/07/2019 20:48, wrote:

An interesting thing about these early 2G phones were the fake antennas.
Apparently users expected a "proper" antenna so they added in a plastic pull
out one that actually did nothing.

My Motorola mr30 had one of those. It got broken off quite early on, but
the phone still worked fine..! Still have it, although the battery is no
more :-(


--
Ria in Aberdeen

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On 18/07/2019 14:33, MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 18/07/2019 07:02, Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 17/07/2019 20:44, wrote:


Ones where the credit rolls over and you don't have to make a regular
calls to keep them alive, aren't quite as common as you claim. The
networks hate them because they tend to get used in "glovebox" phones
were they have all the costs of maintaining the number and the billing
records, for virtually no revenue.

Oh come on, its costs them precisely £0.00 to maintain a number, its
simply
data in a database.



And you are qualified to say that how?Â* Who supplies the database, and
on what license terms (hint: it's often on a per slot basis) - and
that's before we get to the overall costs where there may not be a net
gain per subscriber, but they have to be paid anyway - the radio
network, the data centres, the backhaul, the support staff, customer
services, Ofcom, etc etc etc.

Ok, answer me this -if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still
exist..?

They don't hate it - they, like any other business, like less those who
spend less than others.

Plenty of PAYG customers spend reasonable amount of money. They like
those customers.

Those customers who think it's reasonable to spend £1/year on having an
"emergency phone" cost the operators more money than the revenue they
provide (for reasons we've been in and out of at least twice in the last
month). For obvious commercial reasons they like those customers less.

In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of
discounted market-priced rail tickets as well) that credit-worthy
cheapskates[1] see an opportunity to abstract revenue from the system
by reducing their expenditure via a carefully chosen SIM-free phone
plus tariff package.

As I think I mentioned before, the first and most egregious example that
came to light was "glove box phones" which very likely only send £10 of
revenue to the networks in their entire lifetime.

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of
discounted market-priced rail tickets as well) that credit-worthy
cheapskates[1] see an opportunity to abstract revenue from the system
by reducing their expenditure via a carefully chosen SIM-free phone
plus tariff package.

As I think I mentioned before, the first and most egregious example that
came to light was "glove box phones" which very likely only send £10 of
revenue to the networks in their entire lifetime.

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

I seem to recall that it's the same with Virgin itself: PAYG customers can
only use the Virgin Tube WiFi if they topped up their account with at least
£10 the previous month.



[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.

On Thu, 18 Jul 2019 13:25:01 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:44:43 on Wed, 17 Jul
2019, remarked:

Ones where the credit rolls over and you don't have to make a regular
calls to keep them alive, aren't quite as common as you claim. The
networks hate them because they tend to get used in "glovebox" phones
were they have all the costs of maintaining the number and the billing
records, for virtually no revenue.

Oh come on, its costs them precisely £0.00 to maintain a number, its simply
data in a database.

Ah, the marginal costs fallacy rears its ugly head.

The only cost involved in an unused number is the cost to the user when the
phone company disconnects the SIM. The rest of it costs nothing because the
infrastructure would be needed regardless and linking a phone number to a
SIM id is probably a few hundred bytes or less in a DB. You could store the
entire UK phone book and every cellphone IMEI number on a USB stick with room to
spare never mind a fully fledged datacentre.

That's even assuming there's facilities which aren't charged to the
operator on a per-number basis.

O2 are not a virtual network.

O2 *are* an operator, they own the base station equipment.

Sure about that? It's not uncommon for it to be outsourced to people
like Ericsson.

They may well have, but any charges relating to the physical layer RF systems
will have nothing to do with how many subscribers the network has in its DB
unless they have so many they need to upgrade.

On Thu, 18 Jul 2019 14:38:40 +0100
MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 17/07/2019 20:48, wrote:

An interesting thing about these early 2G phones were the fake antennas.
Apparently users expected a "proper" antenna so they added in a plastic pull
out one that actually did nothing.

My Motorola mr30 had one of those. It got broken off quite early on, but
the phone still worked fine..! Still have it, although the battery is no
more :-(

The Motorola NiMH batteries had a depressingly short life. Both of mine (the
phone came with 2) were done within 3 or so years. I replaced them with NiCads
which lasted longer but unfortunately were larger and heavier.

On Thu, 18 Jul 2019 15:18:47 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of

A problem they created for themselves so I won't be shedding any tears. They
wanted to attract as many people as possible and they did.

On 18/07/2019 15:18, Roland Perry wrote:

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

A standing charge equals a contract. Making someone top up monthly is
effectively forcing them onto one in all but name.

[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.

Ditto. My primary reason is I detest spending money unnecessarily (no,
I'm not Scottish, although I do live here..!) - why should I pay £xx a
month for a phone when I don't make many calls..? To me, a mobile is an
emergency device - if I break down in the middle of nowhere (not hard in
this part of the world) then I need to be able to contact someone.

If I want to ring a friend for a chat, or see how my mother is doing, it
can wait until I'm home. My landline package includes all calls to
landlines and mobiles, and is better value than any mobile contract I've
so far come across. I need the landline for broadband, so it makes sense
to use it and reserve the mobile for essential calls when away from home.

I really do wonder what all these people I see walking along the street
with their heads buried in their so-called "smart" phones are doing. Can
they really not survive ten minutes without checking FarceBuke or
Twitface..? How can they see what's on the screen anyway..? Whenever I
tried to use mine in daylight I couldn't see the thing at all..!


--
Ria in Aberdeen

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