Should Apple build its own 4G network to complement existing carrier networks

[DaveSW]

It would cost well over $40 billion.


To create a "nationwide" network like that in Australia would cost around $50 bn, almost the entire country lives along the east cost. Also, the population is far smaller, so you're talking about a $50 bn network that mostly stretches down one coast, and is only required to serve around 23 million people right now. That's just for home internet, not 4G tech that's far beyond what we have now in terms of speed, and not JUST for customers of a single company.

no it would not cost $50 billion ROFL where are you getting your numbers?



Project type: 3G mobile network WCDMA
Estimated investment: US$500 million on equipment, plus another US$306 million

Vodafone Australia has started the first phase of a two-stage rollout of 3G across Australia. The network will be based upon the popular European standard for 3G networks, WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access). Australia already has its first 3G network courtesy of Hutchinson Telecom trading under its 3G brand name "3".

Vodafone Australia has 2.59 million subscribers across the country, making it the third largest mobile telecommunications company in Australia. The company is working in conjunction with Optus Mobile (a subsidiary of Singapore Telecom) to develop a second 3G network - with the first phase covering the major cities and then a second stage rollout to cover rural areas of the country - following an agreement between the two companies signed in October 2004.

Vodafone Australia and Optus Mobile both won 15yr 2GHz spectrum 3G licences in the March 2001 auction for the 1,885MHz to 2,025MHz and 2,110MHz to 2,200MHz bands for US$253.55 million and AU$248.87million, respectively, and are being allowed to develop a jointly-run network.

The equipment investment for the network is US$500 million, while the other construction costs are US$306 million (these costs will now be shared between Vodafone and Optus [Optus hopes to save over AU$130 million]). The network is being started in late 2004 and is scheduled to be complete and operational by early 2006. Vodafone and Optus will share the network but will still compete for subscribers and operate totally separate customer service operations.

http://www.mobilecomms-technology.com/projects/vodafone/

 

[MacDawg]

Give it up guys
The fire doesn't go out unless you stop putting wood on it

It is a game to him, just to fight his boredom

 

[DaveSW]

1. That was for 3G, not 4G.

2. Chinese workers get paid 5-10x less than they do in the US. Everything would cost more in the US to build.

3. Electronic components cost more in the US.

4. The lack of red tape in China means they can work on projects like this faster, and at a lower cost due to having to satisfy fewer regulators.

5. Nearly everyone in China would be a customer. That means 1.3+ billion potential customers to foot the bill.

ok check out my other post. this time it's in Australia. ITS NO WAY NEAR $50 BILLION

 

[NT1440]

no it would not cost $50 billion ROFL where are you getting your numbers?



Project type: 3G mobile network WCDMA
Estimated investment: US$500 million on equipment, plus another US$306 million

Vodafone Australia has started the first phase of a two-stage rollout of 3G across Australia. The network will be based upon the popular European standard for 3G networks, WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access). Australia already has its first 3G network courtesy of Hutchinson Telecom trading under its 3G brand name "3".

Vodafone Australia has 2.59 million subscribers across the country, making it the third largest mobile telecommunications company in Australia. The company is working in conjunction with Optus Mobile (a subsidiary of Singapore Telecom) to develop a second 3G network - with the first phase covering the major cities and then a second stage rollout to cover rural areas of the country - following an agreement between the two companies signed in October 2004.

Vodafone Australia and Optus Mobile both won 15yr 2GHz spectrum 3G licences in the March 2001 auction for the 1,885MHz to 2,025MHz and 2,110MHz to 2,200MHz bands for US$253.55 million and AU$248.87million, respectively, and are being allowed to develop a jointly-run network.

The equipment investment for the network is US$500 million, while the other construction costs are US$306 million (these costs will now be shared between Vodafone and Optus [Optus hopes to save over AU$130 million]). The network is being started in late 2004 and is scheduled to be complete and operational by early 2006. Vodafone and Optus will share the network but will still compete for subscribers and operate totally separate customer service operations.

http://www.mobilecomms-technology.com/projects/vodafone/

The infrastructure is already somewhat in place, try starting from absolutely nothing, as in not even having the towers/datacenters to handle traffic/employees/etc. Again, you are thinking way too small here.

 

[yg17]

2) i didn't say building a 4G network would be easy. but just because it's hard doesn't mean Apple shouldn't do it.

You said they'd have enough money. I said it's more expensive than what you think it is. I never said it would be easy.

better to have a "complementary" 3G/4G network, than to solely rely on the unusable AT&T 3G network we have right now....


i just want a backup 3G/4G network i can use instead of AT&T switching to Edge everytime their 3G network is unavailable.

My iPhone is very usable on AT&T's 3G network. I never have any problems.

how's that working for you...?

Great, thanks for asking.

no it would not cost $50 billion ROFL where are you getting your numbers?



Project type: 3G mobile network WCDMA
Estimated investment: US$500 million on equipment, plus another US$306 million

Vodafone Australia has started the first phase of a two-stage rollout of 3G across Australia. The network will be based upon the popular European standard for 3G networks, WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access). Australia already has its first 3G network courtesy of Hutchinson Telecom trading under its 3G brand name "3".

Vodafone Australia has 2.59 million subscribers across the country, making it the third largest mobile telecommunications company in Australia. The company is working in conjunction with Optus Mobile (a subsidiary of Singapore Telecom) to develop a second 3G network - with the first phase covering the major cities and then a second stage rollout to cover rural areas of the country - following an agreement between the two companies signed in October 2004.

Vodafone Australia and Optus Mobile both won 15yr 2GHz spectrum 3G licences in the March 2001 auction for the 1,885MHz to 2,025MHz and 2,110MHz to 2,200MHz bands for US$253.55 million and AU$248.87million, respectively, and are being allowed to develop a jointly-run network.

The equipment investment for the network is US$500 million, while the other construction costs are US$306 million (these costs will now be shared between Vodafone and Optus [Optus hopes to save over AU$130 million]). The network is being started in late 2004 and is scheduled to be complete and operational by early 2006. Vodafone and Optus will share the network but will still compete for subscribers and operate totally separate customer service operations.

http://www.mobilecomms-technology.com/projects/vodafone/

There's a huge cost difference between upgrading an existing network and building a new network from scratch.

 

[DaveSW]

8B euros to build the 3G network in Germany. plus 7B euros in licenses/etc.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1370948.stm



huge amount of money. but not nearly over $50B

 

[DaveSW]

You said they'd have enough money. I said it's more expensive than what you think it is. I never said it would be easy.

i know how much it was going to cost "roughly". we both agree it was going to cost a lot of money. but it's not something Apple can't afford.

 

[NT1440]

8B euros to build the 3G network in Germany. plus 7B euros in licenses/etc.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1370948.stm



huge amount of money. but not nearly over $50B

Oh geez, already existent companies with experience building on to their already existing infrastructure? No wonder it's not that expensive.

Again, give an example of a company coming up from absolutely nothing to build a 3G network, let alone a 4G network (HUGE difference in bandwidth capabilities), and tell us how expensive that will be.

 

[yg17]

8B euros to build the 3G network in Germany. plus 7B euros in licenses/etc.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1370948.stm



huge amount of money. but not nearly over $50B

Once again, you completely miss the point. That is to upgrade an existing network. They already have towers. They already have backhaul. They already have a connection into the PSTN. And they already have employees trained in working on wireless networks. Apple has none of that. It costs a hell of a lot less to upgrade a network than to build a new one.

Also, you can't compare the license costs of Germany to the US. Each country can set it's own prices for licenses.

i know how much it was going to cost

No you don't.

 

[Abstract]

no it would not cost $50 billion ROFL where are you getting your numbers?



Project type: 3G mobile network WCDMA
Estimated investment: US$500 million on equipment, plus another US$306 million

I tried to be clear that it was for high speed internet, not mobile. And that's for a lot of infrastructure, since Australia has a really poor system in place. $43 billion (although it has been considered an underestimate of what the real cost will be). The ONLY reason it's relevant is because the infrastructure costs are what's costing so much. It's not like they're adding a few pieces here and there.


Vodafone is for mobile phones, and while it's also very slow, the infrastructure only needs improvement. Generally, the mobile internet speeds here in Australia aren't much worse than in the US, although the prices are worse.

If you're talking about a 4G system, and their own system from scratch, it'll cost you more than you believe.

 

[DaveSW]

here's another one.

In the United States alone, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel (S) and Cingular have spent a combined $10 billion on building their 3G networks.

http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/3G

 

[DaveSW]

Once again, you completely miss the point. That is to upgrade an existing network. They already have towers. They already have backhaul. They already have a connection into the PSTN. And they already have employees trained in working on wireless networks. Apple has none of that. It costs a hell of a lot less to upgrade a network than to build a new one.

Also, you can't compare the license costs of Germany to the US. Each country can set it's own prices for licenses.


No you don't.

read the article it says "BUILD the 3G network" it's not an upgrade.


and check out my other post. Sprint, Cingular, etc. spent $10B COMBINED to BUILD their 3G network.


BUILD BUILD BUILD BUILD === i can't make this any clearer!

 

[yg17]

here's another one.

In the United States alone, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel (S) and Cingular have spent a combined $10 billion on building their 3G networks.

http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/3G

What part of this do you not understand?

IT COSTS A LOT MORE TO BUILD A NEW NETWORK FROM SCRATCH, WHICH IS WHAT APPLE WOULD HAVE TO DO, THAN TO UPGRADE A 2G NETWORK TO 3G LIKE SPRINT, NEXTEL, VERIZON, CINGULAR, VODAFONE AND T-MOBILE DID.

 

[NT1440]

here's another one.

In the United States alone, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel (S) and Cingular have spent a combined $10 billion on building their 3G networks.

http://www.wikinvest.com/concept/3G

OFF OF EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURES. What is it that you don't understand about that?

 

[yg17]

read the article it says "BUILD the 3G network" it's not an upgrade.


and check out my other post. Sprint, Cingular, etc. spent $10B COMBINED to BUILD their 3G network.


BUILD BUILD BUILD BUILD === i can't make this any clearer!

They can stick 3G equipment on top of their existing 2G towers. Apple can't do that. You don't get it, and I'm getting sick of repeating myself.

 

[Abstract]

8B euros to build the 3G network in Germany. plus 7B euros in licenses/etc.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1370948.stm



huge amount of money. but not nearly over $50B

8B Euro for each of the 6 companies. That's 8,000,000,000 Euro x 6, and that's for a tiny country like Germany, and in 2001. It's also after the companies were allowed to share infrastructure costs between them, which saved them money.

You want Apple to just build iPhone users a 4G network when most other people are still expected to be on 3G for another 3-4 years?

Also....

On the German licences alone, the six companies spent a total of 50.8bn euros ($43bn).

 

[JNB]

This is like watching videos of cars careening out of control in icy weather. Viscerally painful, totally avoidable on the OPerator's part in the first place, but you just can't pull yourself away from watching it…

 

[Abstract]

I want Apple to build a robot that can travel in time and 'terminate' DaveSW's birth, or at least some birth control.

 

[Cerebrus' Maw]

I think the fact that the four posts directly after the OP's last post, which all basically blew the same hole in his theory, might (hopefully) catch his attention.

 

[jav6454]

Successful troll is Successful....

PS - The third image (Bender & Lila) is for the OP

 

[pdjudd]

The whole argument is not about “possibility” or “difficulty” all of these things are possible. The real problem is that it is just not practical to create a US only network by dumping massive funding to support a small user base for what would essentially be a charitable loss leader approach. That notion is just insane. You might as well suggest that Apple should just undercut HP and Dell with that 40 billion hoping to gain massive market-share and assuming the industry will comply.

It just does not work like that. Such an approach is just not practical. That’s the fundamental problem - practicality.

 

[DaveSW]

The infrastructure is already somewhat in place, try starting from absolutely nothing, as in not even having the towers/datacenters to handle traffic/employees/etc. Again, you are thinking way too small here.

it will not cost MORE than $50B.

 

[LethalWolfe]

I want Apple to build a robot that can travel in time and 'terminate' DaveSW's birth, or at least some birth control.

I think DaveSW is running a strong race for most annoying poster on MR but that was uncalled for, IMO, Abstract. If you don't like DaveSW's threads don't read them.


Lethal

 

[DaveSW]

The whole argument is not about “possibility” or “difficulty” all of these things are possible. The real problem is that it is just not practical to create a US only network by dumping massive funding to support a small user base for what would essentially be a charitable loss leader approach. That notion is just insane. You might as well suggest that Apple should just undercut HP and Dell with that 40 billion hoping to gain massive market-share and assuming the industry will comply.

It just does not work like that. Such an approach is just not practical. That’s the fundamental problem - practicality.

i didn't suggest Apple give it all away for free. They can charge an additional monthly fee, and even strike partnerships w/ existing carriers to reduce cost.

heck i don't care if it's even 3G/4G. Maybe Apple can offer free Wifi hotspots in major cities.

 

[DaveSW]

I think DaveSW is running a strong race for most annoying poster on MR but that was uncalled for, IMO, Abstract. If you don't like DaveSW's threads don't read them.


Lethal

it's ok. They're all like that in Australia.