At 15.09 -0800 04-02-05, Einar Stefferud wrote:
Hello Jacob -- Telephone systems ran a micropayment systems
for decades, Charging for calls by the minute. the umbers I
have seen are that the cost of the payment systems (aka Billing
Dept) was in he order of 70% of the cost of phone service.
This is why most have gone to flat fees for phone service,
because it is competitive. When the cost per unit becomes
small enough (like US $0.10 cents) even the hone companies
cannot afford to run the micropayment system any more.
The cost of the payment system will dwarf the cost of EMAIL.
I understand the the list wants to openly consider any and all
ideas, but lets not fail to discuss them in the light of reality.
It is fine by me to include the idea, but not under false
assumptions of cost.
So, my comments are as legitimate as yours;-)...
But this was a long time ago. Computers and networks have
become much much less expensive in the last ten years. I do
not understand why they could not design a real low-cost
micopayment system.
But since they have not succeeded in doing this, I guess
you are right, there must be some hitch causing the cost to
be high even with todays equipment.
In Sweden, phone companies nowadays charge per call and
provide a detailed itinerary on the bill, usually once
every third month, of every single call, even local calls.
The typical price of a phone call between any two
fixed-line (non-cellular) phones in Sweden is around 3
cents in Sweden. The Swedish phone companies do not seem to
have any problem handling such small items in their bills!
--
Jacob Palme <jpalme(_at_)dsv(_dot_)su(_dot_)se> (Stockholm University and KTH)
for more info see URL: http://www.dsv.su.se/jpalme/