In article <NDZJI.5$W72.1@fx05.iad>, JF Mezei
<jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> > the fact is that i was tethering back then, and the phone could detect
> > it versus a normal voice call.
>
> Dial-up over switched voice call in AMPS days isn't tethering

i didn't say amps, and it's tethering any time a computer is connected,
by definition.

> because
> the modem was on your side and the phone handled a normal voice call
> tramsmitting sounds that happened to be modem sounds instead of voice.

it definitely did *not* do that.

> The carrier wouldn't know. The phone would only know that you had an
> "extention phone" attached to its plug.

the carrier *did* know, although there were ways around it, which i
mentioned several times.

as usual, you have no clue how it worked.

>
> You or your ilk had argued that therering always used separate APN from
> normal data.

i didn't say always. stop lying.

what i said was the carriers could detect tethering long before the
iphone was even a thought, let alone work in progress or a shipping
product.

your claim that detection was only possible after the iphone was
released is laughably wrong, as is everything else you say.

> And you now point to analogue AMPS that had no concept of
> an APN.

*you* mentioned amps. i did not.

cdpd on amps was garbage and amps service was too expensive for cdpd to
be even a consideration outside of *extremely* limited scenarios.

Am 21.07.21 um 15:22 schrieb nospam:
> In article <sd8g4d$8th$1@dont-email.me>, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch>
> wrote:
>
>> Am 19.07.21 um 03:11 schrieb nospam:
>>> i had phones at least as far back as 2000 that could detect tethering
>>> versus non-tethering via apn or other methods.
>>
>> Wikipedia:
>>
>> The iPhone is a line of smartphones designed and marketed by Apple Inc.
>> that use Apple's iOS mobile operating system. The first-generation
>> iPhone was announced by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on *January 9*, *2007*.
>
> read what i wrote again. hint: it's not about the iphone.

;-) sorry! Read to fast ...

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

Am 21.07.21 um 20:24 schrieb JF Mezei:
> On 2021-07-21 09:22, nospam wrote:
>
>> the fact is that i was tethering back then, and the phone could detect
>> it versus a normal voice call.
>
> Dial-up over switched voice call in AMPS days isn't tethering because
> the modem was on your side and the phone handled a normal voice call
> tramsmitting sounds that happened to be modem sounds instead of voice.
> The carrier wouldn't know. The phone would only know that you had an
> "extention phone" attached to its plug.

Sigh! I have done tethering as fas back as 1999 on GSM-networks.

> GSM got GPRS formally in 1998 (standard) but it didn't instantly become
> available. It was late to deploy in Canada and USA (in USA, became
> available in 2002, roughly at same time as CDMA's equivalent).

As I say the Northamerica is still at least 5 years behind Europe in
mobile communication. That never changed since the beginning of the new
millenium. One reason for this lag is the use of CDMA-Technolgy by
Verizon. Only with the Rollout of LTE and 5G the US has a chance to
close the technolgy gap. But that is a different story.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

On 2021-07-24 01:34, Joerg Lorenz wrote:

> As I say the Northamerica is still at least 5 years behind Europe in
> mobile communication. That never changed since the beginning of the new
> millenium.

For LTE it was different. The spectrum auctions for bands that were
planned to be used for "4"G happened a few years later in Europe, so
Europe was generally late in deploying LTE. (but it had HSPA+ which is
already fairly suffucient for download, though slowler for upload
compared to LTE.

Europ]e being late for LTE was raised at regulatory hearings in Canada
because incumbents pointed to reduced investents in Europe compared to
Canada (and then claiming it was due to regulations in Europe that
Canada should not adopt). The real reason for that resudec investment
was one of timing because spectrm became available later, so there was a
period where investment in canada was higher).

Canadian rich moniopoly carriers just competed for spectrum aon 3500
(we,re late on USA), and will be "investing" CAD $8b (aka: donating
$8b to politicians to play with).

When you include spectrum in "investment", and the government structures
the auctions to raise as much money as possible, of course you will be
showing higher investment than in a country where the goverbnment wants
to make wireless affordable and structures spectrum
auctions/distribution to be as affordable as possible.

On 7/24/2021 1:39 AM, JF Mezei wrote:

<snip>

> For LTE it was different. The spectrum auctions for bands that were
> planned to be used for "4"G happened a few years later in Europe, so
> Europe was generally late in deploying LTE. (but it had HSPA+ which is
> already fairly suffucient for download, though slowler for upload
> compared to LTE.

<snip>

Most of Europe is far behind the U.S. in 5G.

"5G in Europe lags behind all other regions, according to research
carried out on behalf of the European Telecommunications Network
Operators’ Association (ETNO)."
<https://techmonitor.ai/5g/5g-in-europe-c-band-us>

The Economist had a good article about why Europe lagged behind the U.S.
in mobile communications, beginning with 3G
<https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/09/02/the-lessons-of-3g>.

In article <sdg8pf$93m$1@dont-email.me>, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch>
wrote:

> > GSM got GPRS formally in 1998 (standard) but it didn't instantly become
> > available. It was late to deploy in Canada and USA (in USA, became
> > available in 2002, roughly at same time as CDMA's equivalent).
>
> As I say the Northamerica is still at least 5 years behind Europe in
> mobile communication. That never changed since the beginning of the new
> millenium. One reason for this lag is the use of CDMA-Technolgy by
> Verizon. Only with the Rollout of LTE and 5G the US has a chance to
> close the technolgy gap. But that is a different story.

cdma was well ahead of gsm.

Am 24.07.21 um 11:56 schrieb sms:
> On 7/24/2021 1:39 AM, JF Mezei wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> For LTE it was different. The spectrum auctions for bands that were
>> planned to be used for "4"G happened a few years later in Europe, so
>> Europe was generally late in deploying LTE. (but it had HSPA+ which is
>> already fairly suffucient for download, though slowler for upload
>> compared to LTE.
>
> <snip>
>
> Most of Europe is far behind the U.S. in 5G.
>
> "5G in Europe lags behind all other regions, according to research
> carried out on behalf of the European Telecommunications Network
> Operators’ Association (ETNO)."
> <https://techmonitor.ai/5g/5g-in-europe-c-band-us>
>
> The Economist had a good article about why Europe lagged behind the U.S.
> in mobile communications, beginning with 3G
> <https://www.economist.com/leaders/2004/09/02/the-lessons-of-3g>.

Good joke!

In Europe currently even LTE is faster than 5G in the US ...
In many countries in Europe 5G-rollout is slower than LTE was, simpy
because the quality and coverage of LTE is so high.

The US are developping country as fas as mobile communication is
concerned. That is easily visisble in the contract models for consumers.

BTW: Switzerland was more than a year ahead of the US with 5G and full
coverage of the whole country including the Alpine region was reached
long time ago. Claiming "Europe" shows how litte the Economist which
certainly not the source of choice for this technical area understands
how mobile communication is organised in Europe.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

Am 24.07.21 um 12:44 schrieb nospam:
> In article <sdg8pf$93m$1@dont-email.me>, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch>
> wrote:
>> As I say the Northamerica is still at least 5 years behind Europe in
>> mobile communication. That never changed since the beginning of the new
>> millenium. One reason for this lag is the use of CDMA-Technolgy by
>> Verizon. Only with the Rollout of LTE and 5G the US has a chance to
>> close the technolgy gap. But that is a different story.
>
> cdma was well ahead of gsm.

That was not the issue. The limitations of the CDMA-networks was a huge
brake on the development of mobile telecommunication and was a dead end.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

On Jul 25, 2021, Joerg Lorenz wrote
(in article<news:sdj33b$ipv$1@dont-email.me>):
> The US are developping country as fas as mobile communication is
> concerned. That is easily visisble in the contract models for consumers.

How is the European contract model better than the no contract USA model?

Ron, the humblest guy in town.

In article <sdj38v$ipv$2@dont-email.me>, Joerg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.ch>
wrote:

> >> As I say the Northamerica is still at least 5 years behind Europe in
> >> mobile communication. That never changed since the beginning of the new
> >> millenium. One reason for this lag is the use of CDMA-Technolgy by
> >> Verizon. Only with the Rollout of LTE and 5G the US has a chance to
> >> close the technolgy gap. But that is a different story.
> >
> > cdma was well ahead of gsm.
>
> That was not the issue. The limitations of the CDMA-networks was a huge
> brake on the development of mobile telecommunication and was a dead end.

nope. cdma was not as limited as tdma, which was the air interface of
gsm. it had higher capacity per cell and was not affected by distance.

the issue with cdma was licensing because qualcomm is an incredibly
sleazy company, who unfortunately has control over lte and 5g.

On 7/25/2021 5:50 AM, RonTheGuy wrote:
> On Jul 25, 2021, Joerg Lorenz wrote
> (in article<news:sdj33b$ipv$1@dont-email.me>):
>> The US are developping country as fas as mobile communication is
>> concerned. That is easily visisble in the contract models for consumers.
>
> How is the European contract model better than the no contract USA model?
>
> Ron, the humblest guy in town.

In terms of deployment of mobile technology, the U.S., China, and a
couple of other Asian and some European countries lead the way, but much
of Europe lags behind. Here are two references:

"Ericsson says fears about Europe's 5G lag have come true"
<https://www.lightreading.com/5g/ericsson-says-fears-about-europes-5g-lag-have-come-true/d/d-id/770228>

"Europe’s 5G lags behind the US and Asia – and the gap could be growing"
<https://techmonitor.ai/5g/5g-in-europe-c-band-us>

It is extremely naive to judge the state of mobile communications in a
country by contract versus no-contract cell phone plans. It's an absurd
metric. It's even more absurd because U.S. carriers no longer require
contracts!

Previously, U.S. carriers required contracts in exchange for free or
subsidized phones, with hefty penalties, that far exceeded the value of
the "free" phone, for breaking the contract. That isn't the case anymore.

Currently, for postpaid services, there is no contract but phones can be
subsidized via monthly bill credits and if you leave the carrier prior
to the phone being paid off by those credits then you owe the balance
due on the phone; fair enough as long as the carrier unlocks the
paid-off phone (Verizon unlocks all phones after 60 days, paid off or not).

Phone manufacturers like this system because there's a big incentive for
consumers get a new phone after 24 months since there's no discount on
service for not taking the phone subsidy, so if you're planning to stay
with your postpaid carrier anyway then you should take the subsidy.

Some people insist that the 24 month phone subsidies amount to the same
thing as a contract, but they really don't--you can leave anytime and
just pay off the balance due. And of course you're always free to buy a
phone at retail price and bring it to the carrier of your choice, even
though that isn't usually a smart thing to do.

The fastest growing segment of the U.S. wireless industry is prepaid,
which has no contracts, both carrier-offered services like Cricket
(AT&T), Metro (T-Mobile), Visible (Verizon), plus a plethora of MVNOs
reselling service from the nationwide carriers. These entities also
offer payment plans for phones. Visible doesn't have discounted phones
but they don't lock any of the phones they sell, payment plan or no
payment plan.

The upside of the prepaid services is that they are usually much less
expensive per month because there are no phone subsidies that have to be
absorbed by the carrier.

Here is a comparison I did for some subreddits that compares 4 line
family plans on Verizon postpaid, Verizon prepaid, Visible by Verizon,
Total Wireless, and US Mobile:
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tIi8rzwJf8SAPPW15RrG84Jv3z8aY9kuLc_lwzxm9As/>.
You can pay between $98 and $268 for the same base service; paying more
gets you things like extra-cost international roaming, unlimited
high-speed data, available Apple Watch support, included international
data roaming (eSIM phones only), and various other perks. And of course
you get hefty phone subsidies on Verizon postpaid.

On 7/25/2021 11:59 AM, sms wrote:

<snip>

> Visible doesn't have discounted phones
> but they don't lock any of the phones they sell, payment plan or no
> payment plan.

Actually Visible does offer a prepaid Mastercard after two paid months
of service, with the amount varying on the desirability of the phone, up
to $150 off. The iPhone SE2020 is sold for $384 plus you get a $50
credit after two months of service. The iPhone 11 is $600 with a $150
credit after two months of service. These aren't huge subsidies but the
phones are unlocked and someone could leave after two months with an
unlocked phone.

sms wrote:

> Some people insist that the 24 month phone subsidies amount to the
> same thing as a contract, but they really don't--you can leave
> anytime and just pay off the balance due.

Not exactly with Verizon. I bought my $999 list price phone for $699. A
$300 discount. Problem is that Verizon applies the discount over a 24
month period at $12.50 a month. So if I leave early I lose the remaining
discount, thus making my phone a bit more expensive than planned...

On 7/25/2021 3:50 PM, AJL wrote:
> sms wrote:
>
>> Some people insist that the 24 month phone subsidies amount to the
>> same thing as a contract, but they really don't--you can leave
>> anytime and just pay off the balance due.
>
> Not exactly with Verizon. I bought my $999 list price phone for $699. A
> $300 discount. Problem is that Verizon applies the discount over a 24
> month period at $12.50 a month. So if I leave early I lose the remaining
> discount, thus making my phone a bit more expensive than planned...

Right, a $300 subsidy applied at a rate of $12.50 per month for 24 months.

The whole idea is to make it unattractive to leave prior to all of the
subsidy being applied, and then repeat the whole thing. At only $300 off
that is not so attractive though. Verizon is offering the $600 iPhone 11
for free ($25/month subsidy for 24 months). My brother and his wife
took this offer last year.

Assuming a $25 per month per line value of a subsidy, postpaid Verizon
is attractive. Without a veteran's or corporate discount, 24 months of
Verizon postpaid, for four lines, would cost $5253-$2400=$2853.36 (this
is in my ZIP code with taxes and fees). With the veteran's discount it
would be $4669-$2400=$2270. 24 months oF Verizon Visible or Total
Wireless would be around $2400. So as long as you're taking full
advantage of the phone subsidies, by upgrading every 24 months, Verizon
postpaid makes sense.

On Jul 25, 2021, sms wrote
(in article<news:sdksv1$ge$1@dont-email.me>):
> The whole idea is to make it unattractive to leave prior to all of the
> subsidy being applied, and then repeat the whole thing.

How often are people switching carriers?
Why?

Ron, the humblest guy in town.

On 7/25/2021 5:53 PM, RonTheGuy wrote:
> On Jul 25, 2021, sms wrote
> (in article<news:sdksv1$ge$1@dont-email.me>):
>> The whole idea is to make it unattractive to leave prior to all of the
>> subsidy being applied, and then repeat the whole thing.
>
> How often are people switching carriers?

Less than in the past.

Postpaid Monthly Phone churn, reported quarterly:
AT&T: 0.76% in Q42020
T-Mobile: 1.03% in Q42020
Verizon: 0.98% in Q42020

In the past, monthly churn was routinely over 2% for some carriers. That
means an annual churn rate of over 29% when compounded. At 1.03% monthly
churn the annual churn rate is a little over 14%.

> Why?

Lots of reasons.

T-Mobile has been very successful in adding new postpaid customers by
offering lower prices as well as various perks like included low-speed
foreign roaming data, Netflix, and "T-Mobile Tuesday" perks which have
included free tacos from Taco Bell and free Whoppers from Burger King .

Verizon and AT&T get people to switch because they offer better
coverage, quality, and data speeds.

You can see the vast differences between carriers in the latest
Rootmetrics study at
<https://rootmetrics.com/en-US/content/us-state-of-the-mobile-union-1h-2021>.

On Jul 25, 2021, sms wrote
(in article<news:sdl5b6$ato$1@dont-email.me>):
>>> The whole idea is to make it unattractive to leave prior to all of the
>>> subsidy being applied, and then repeat the whole thing.
>>
>> How often are people switching carriers?
> At 1.03% monthly churn the annual churn rate is a little over 14%.

I wonder why it's as high as 1 out of every 7 people changing carriers.

>> Why?
>
> Lots of reasons.
>
> T-Mobile has been very successful in adding new postpaid customers by
> offering lower prices as well as various perks like included low-speed
> foreign roaming data, Netflix, and "T-Mobile Tuesday" perks which have
> included free tacos from Taco Bell and free Whoppers from Burger King .

Of all those things I would think price matters most to those changing.

> Verizon and AT&T get people to switch because they offer better
> coverage, quality, and data speeds.

That stuff isn't going to change all that fast to support 1 out of 7.
It must be price.

Which carrier has the best US prices (without playing games with the plans)?

Ron, the humblest guy in town.

sms wrote:
> On 7/25/2021 3:50 PM, AJL wrote:
>> sms wrote:
>>
>>> Some people insist that the 24 month phone subsidies amount to
>>> the same thing as a contract, but they really don't--you can
>>> leave anytime and just pay off the balance due.
>>
>> Not exactly with Verizon. I bought my $999 list price phone for
>> $699. A $300 discount. Problem is that Verizon applies the
>> discount over a 24 month period at $12.50 a month. So if I leave
>> early I lose the remaining discount, thus making my phone a bit
>> more expensive than planned...
>
> Right, a $300 subsidy applied at a rate of $12.50 per month for 24
> months.

Right. In the old days if I left early I paid extra. Same today.

> The whole idea is to make it unattractive to leave prior to all of
> the subsidy being applied,

Of course. Good business.

> and then repeat the whole thing.

Not necessarily. I'm almost at the end of my 2 years. The phone still
works great so I'll likely keep it another year or two. In the old days
I'd always get a new free phone since I'd be paying the same whether I
did or not. Now it will definitely be cheaper to keep the old phone.

> At only $300 off that is not so attractive though.

It was the best deal in town at the time. And since I've been with
Verizon from the beginning and likely to the end, I figured
why not.

In article <wq5llcj1uoay$.dlg@news.solani.org>, RonTheGuy
<ron@null.invalid> wrote:

> On Jul 25, 2021, sms wrote
> (in article<news:sdl5b6$ato$1@dont-email.me>):
> > At 1.03% monthly churn the annual churn rate is a little over 14%.
>
> I wonder why it's as high as 1 out of every 7 people changing carriers.

it's not.

On 2021-07-24 06:44, nospam wrote:

> cdma was well ahead of gsm.

Good joke. GSM was widely deployed in early 1990s.

GSM standard agreed upon 1987
First GSM voice call 1991
First SMS 1992
1993: Australia deploys GSM (first outside Europe)
1993: UK deploys GSM on 1800 (Fiorst deployments were on 900)
1995: circuit switched data available
1995: 1900 GSM available for north american deployment
(Fido in Canada start in 1996 or early 1997 as I recall)
2000 First GPRS in commercia operation

CDMA:

1989 Qualcomm starts to develiop what would become IS-95
1993 US agres to Qualcomm proprietary IA95 standard. (so 6 years after
GSM's standard was agreed to)
1996: First Qualcomm IS-95 deployment: South Korea.
1996: Bell Atlantic starts testing its CDMA IS95 in Trenton NJ
1997: Bell Atlantic launched in Washington, Baltimore Pittsburg.
2000: EVDO unveiled in a Lucent/Qualcomm joint lab experiment
(meanwhile GPRS already in commercial operation)
2001: First 1XRTT deployment : Western Wireless (now Verizon)

I know that in Canada, when telcos (at the time, BC Tel, Edmonton
Telephpone, AGT, SaskTel, MTS, Bell Canada , Bell Aliant (not sure ob
the maritimes have merged yet) were quite late in introducing SMS
capability on their sevices which gace Fido a big advantage. When they
did, there ewre then calls for interoperability and a central exchange
was done so the GSM networks (Rogers wibhc include Fido) and the telcos
could exchange between the GSM and CDMA worlds, inluding the fact SMS
messages on CDMA were shorter).

So there was no time where Qualcomm's CDMA (IS95 or CDMAone or CDMA 2000
later) was deployed before any of the GSM generations.

On 7/25/2021 7:40 PM, RonTheGuy wrote:
> On Jul 25, 2021, sms wrote
> (in article<news:sdl5b6$ato$1@dont-email.me>):
>>>> The whole idea is to make it unattractive to leave prior to all of the
>>>> subsidy being applied, and then repeat the whole thing.
>>>
>>> How often are people switching carriers?
>> At 1.03% monthly churn the annual churn rate is a little over 14%.
>
> I wonder why it's as high as 1 out of every 7 people changing carriers.

That's actually very low compared to what it was. Look at T-Mobile churn
over the years, from a quarterly high of 5.39% down to the current low
of 2.78% (those are quarterly numbers, not monthly).

> That stuff isn't going to change all that fast to support 1 out of 7.
> It must be price.

A lot of people are willing to pay more for much better coverage,
especially once they're in a situation where they need coverage and
don't have it. If not, T-Mobile would be #1 instead of #3. I don't think
the differences in data speeds are such a big deal. Yes T-Mobile is the
slowest but for phone data those differences are inconsequential.

T-Mobile is in a good position by catering to price-sensitive
subscribers for whom geographic coverage in non-urban areas is not a big
concern. The downside is that they can't really raise prices unless they
improve coverage and improving coverage is extremely expensive.

> Which carrier has the best US prices (without playing games with the plans)?

T-Mobile has the lowest average revenue per user and appears to have the
lowest postpaid prices, especially when you factor in the included taxes
& fees which can be substantial depending on location. However
T-Mobile's prepaid Metro service is no bargain compared to what is
offered by AT&T (Cricket) and Verizon (Visible).

On 7/25/2021 9:22 PM, JF Mezei wrote:
> On 2021-07-24 06:44, nospam wrote:
>
>> cdma was well ahead of gsm.
>
>
> Good joke. GSM was widely deployed in early 1990s.
>
> GSM standard agreed upon 1987
> First GSM voice call 1991
> First SMS 1992
> 1993: Australia deploys GSM (first outside Europe)
> 1993: UK deploys GSM on 1800 (Fiorst deployments were on 900)
> 1995: circuit switched data available
> 1995: 1900 GSM available for north american deployment
> (Fido in Canada start in 1996 or early 1997 as I recall)
> 2000 First GPRS in commercia operation
>
> CDMA:
>
> 1989 Qualcomm starts to develiop what would become IS-95
> 1993 US agres to Qualcomm proprietary IA95 standard. (so 6 years after
> GSM's standard was agreed to)
> 1996: First Qualcomm IS-95 deployment: South Korea.
> 1996: Bell Atlantic starts testing its CDMA IS95 in Trenton NJ
> 1997: Bell Atlantic launched in Washington, Baltimore Pittsburg.
> 2000: EVDO unveiled in a Lucent/Qualcomm joint lab experiment
> (meanwhile GPRS already in commercial operation)
> 2001: First 1XRTT deployment : Western Wireless (now Verizon)
>
>
> I know that in Canada, when telcos (at the time, BC Tel, Edmonton
> Telephpone, AGT, SaskTel, MTS, Bell Canada , Bell Aliant (not sure ob
> the maritimes have merged yet) were quite late in introducing SMS
> capability on their sevices which gace Fido a big advantage. When they
> did, there ewre then calls for interoperability and a central exchange
> was done so the GSM networks (Rogers wibhc include Fido) and the telcos
> could exchange between the GSM and CDMA worlds, inluding the fact SMS
> messages on CDMA were shorter).
>
> So there was no time where Qualcomm's CDMA (IS95 or CDMAone or CDMA 2000
> later) was deployed before any of the GSM generations.

Well eventually GSM moved to CDMA as well, just W-CDMA instead of
CDMA2000. They had no choice since CDMA is a much more efficient use of
spectrum. And they had to bay royalties to Qualcomm no matter what.

Not sure which will be completely shutdown in the U.S. first. AT&T
already shut down GSM but T-Mobile still operates their GSM network.
Verizon and U.S. Cellular haven't shut down CDMA yet.

In article <%LqLI.72184$dp5.1902@fx48.iad>, JF Mezei
<jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> wrote:

>
> > cdma was well ahead of gsm.
>
>
> Good joke. GSM was widely deployed in early 1990s.

so what? cdma is technologically better in every way than gsm, which
was slow and generated a shitload of rfi, which is why 3g/hspa switched
to it for its air interface. lte and 5g are based on cdma.

Am 25.07.21 um 14:50 schrieb RonTheGuy:
> On Jul 25, 2021, Joerg Lorenz wrote
> (in article<news:sdj33b$ipv$1@dont-email.me>):
>> The US are developping country as fas as mobile communication is
>> concerned. That is easily visisble in the contract models for consumers.
>
> How is the European contract model better than the no contract USA model?

There is always a contract. Contracts do not need the written form.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum

Am 25.07.21 um 20:59 schrieb sms:
> It is extremely naive to judge the state of mobile communications in a
> country by contract versus no-contract cell phone plans. It's an absurd
> metric. It's even more absurd because U.S. carriers no longer require
> contracts!

Even prepaid is a contract. You only show that you have not a deeper
understanding what the legal term contract means.

You have a lot of problems to understand various aspects of mobile
communication technology and its implementation anyway.

--
De gustibus non est disputandum