Obama Phone

[Shootin 4 Fun]

Of the 10.4 billion the federal government spends in 1 day, I wonder how much of that is on phones...

About $4.4 million.

 

[inactive]

That's a lot of revenue. You have no idea what kind of profit margin it is because you don't understand what their overhead is. This is the problem in general I have with the anti-business sentiments I see like, the "businesses will just pass the cost on to the consumers."

Your statement is very true about overhead and businesses in general. About the cell phones specifically, they do have very low overhead now because the infrastructure is already in place and in a sense, subsidized by the regular cell phone subscribers. The Lifeline program has the government pay relatively small fee for each phone - I think $9 or so for non-Indian land and an admittedly ridiculous $30 for Indian land phones (includes OK of course).

9 dollars is pretty damn cheap. If the phone companies make enough profit on $9 per line per month to go out and solicit new business with vans and pop-up shops outside corner stores, you know the overhead has to be really, really low.

 

[ez bake]

My underwear is up my butt. Wait...


Naw, it's cool.

 

[soonersfan]

Your statement is very true about overhead and businesses in general. About the cell phones specifically, they do have very low overhead now because the infrastructure is already in place and in a sense, subsidized by the regular cell phone subscribers. The Lifeline program has the government pay relatively small fee for each phone - I think $9 or so for non-Indian land and an admittedly ridiculous $30 for Indian land phones (includes OK of course).

9 dollars is pretty damn cheap. If the phone companies make enough profit on $9 per line per month to go out and solicit new business with vans and pop-up shops outside corner stores, you know the overhead has to be really, really low.

Well my argument was more in general than cell phone specific. Although, if the cell phone companies dropped all their plans to $9 a month, they would not survive. However, once their fixed cost are covered, incremental sales increases much higher margin. I really don't know much about the cell phone industry to begin with and defending them was not my point.

My point is that everyone seems to be on the side of evil government or evil business. I tend to believe that capitalism forces businesses to be more efficient because of competition. I am not arguing that we don't need some regulation or oversight by the government to protect the consumer and the employee. It is necessary but we should not have more than is necessary.

The government on the other hand has no competition. They can be as wasteful, inefficient and corrupt as they want and remain in business. Giving them more power and more money defies all logic to me but maybe my logic is flawed.

 

[Mike_60]

Heres some cell phone math, hypothetical of course.

100 million cell phone users in the US. If we all had to pay only $50 a month per phone, that would look like this.

$50x12=$600, then multiply that times 100 million. 600x100 million. Thatsa lotta profit margine for the cell phone ppl. Maybe they could help out the poor and give em a free phone. Christ thats a butt load of money.

After reading through this thread, I’ve come to the conclusion that those in favor of the Obama phone program seem to believe its ok because someone else is paying for it, like this uninformed statement above. First, I’d like to set you straight, it’s YOU who is paying the bill for these phones; it is not the phone companies, or the 1%, or some magical money hole the government is pulling money from. The Universal Access Charge (TAX) on each of our phone bills is what is footing the bill for this giveaway program and the phone companies love it. It is guaranteed money they are collecting on behalf of the government from you (if you pay for phone service). They turn it over to the treasury and the treasury writes them a check. The next thing being worked on by the FCC is free broadband to these same folks.

For the OP, if you’re really serious which I doubt, peddle on over to your local dollar store; or any empty building’s parking lot near one, and look for a car with a long line of people queued up to the window. It’ll either be free phones or a drug dealer.

 

[Mike_60]

... About the cell phones specifically, they do have very low overhead now because the infrastructure is already in place...9 dollars is pretty damn cheap. If the phone companies make enough profit on $9 per line per month... you know the overhead has to be really, really low.

This statement about infrastructure is totally wrong. It is not already in place, it is being constantly being built out and upgraded in a continuing process. For instance, in one three year period I’m familiar with, one telecom’s network traffic increased by over 5000% and that isn’t an exaggeration. The amount of money to keep up with this kind of growth is staggering. And not all parts of a business are profitable sometimes one operation subsidizes other parts of a business. One particular telecom company just announced they were going to spend at least 66 Billion over the next three years upgrading the network to have 4G over their entire footprint. This idea of it is already paid for is ridiculous.

A landline for $9 (even $30) loses money and is subsidized by other parts of the business plain and simple.

 

[n8thegr8]

I keep getting someone's statements from assistwireless. I keep returning to sender, but they keep sending em. I figure some scumbag gave them my address when they signed up for one. Either that, or they've just skipped all pretense and are billing me directly because I'm an evil bastard that has a job.

 

[Lurker66]

After reading through this thread, I’ve come to the conclusion that those in favor of the Obama phone program seem to believe its ok because someone else is paying for it, like this uninformed statement above. First, I’d like to set you straight, it’s YOU who is paying the bill for these phones; it is not the phone companies, or the 1%, or some magical money hole the government is pulling money from. The Universal Access Charge (TAX) on each of our phone bills is what is footing the bill for this giveaway program and the phone companies love it. It is guaranteed money they are collecting on behalf of the government from you (if you pay for phone service). They turn it over to the treasury and the treasury writes them a check. The next thing being worked on by the FCC is free broadband to these same folks.

For the OP, if you’re really serious which I doubt, peddle on over to your local dollar store; or any empty building’s parking lot near one, and look for a car with a long line of people queued up to the window. It’ll either be free phones or a drug dealer.

Thank you for setting me straight. Your argument was very compelling. Im now onboard. No subsidized phones for anyone. Down with Obama phones!!!

 

[Mike_60]

Lurker....Glad I could help out.

To clarify for the OP, I wasn't kidding about the empty parking lots, because I travel all over the place daily and I see them passing out phones everywhere from the places I described.

 

[ignerntbend]

Loaves and fishes type miracle. That's what the free phones are. Something from nothing.