Sponsor's Message

I'm talking about miniaturisation of course -- a process that has been applied to just about everything electronic and seems to know no limits.

Just take a look at the latest and greatest cellphones -- they're tiny!

Even my cheap $99 Motorola phone is just 75mm x 35mm and this is a far cry from the old "beige brick" that was my first mobile.

I suspect it won't be long before the current blue-tooth hands-free units that look like something out of Star Trek actually contain the entire workings of a mobile phone and will allow us all to wear our phones as some now wear earrings or sunglasses.

But this miniaturisation isn't limited just to the ICs and other components from which such devices are made -- even battery technology is getting smaller and better.

Most cellphones now have lithium ion (or lithium polymer) batteries that have vastly superior energy densities to the old nickel cadmium or even nickel metal-hydride cells. Of course with high energy densities comes a degree of risk and there are reports of people's cellphones exploding in their hands -- but fortunately these events are rare.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

So what has prompted me to write about miniaturisation?

Well on the weekend I had the chance to play with one of those little miniature RC cars that sell for under $10 in The Warehouse.

I've got to say that these are astonishing pieces of miniaturisation -- both in terms of their physical size and their price.

These things are tiny and it's very hard to believe what you're getting for your $9.95.

They have steering (left/right) and forwards/backwards controls plus the car has an inbuilt rechargeable battery that allows them to run for several minutes on a single 60-second recharge.

When you consider that there's obviously a retail and wholesale profit margin included in that retail price, it's very hard to see how anyone could manufacture such a device for this trifling amount of money.

This spiraling reduction in size and cost is at least in part attributable to Moore's law but it leaves me wondering...

If a mobile phone is now 1/10th the size and 1/10th the cost it was just 20 years ago, why am I actually paying *more* per minute to make a mobile call?

If the cost of electronics, especially new electronics, is plummeting at such a rapid rate, why are we paying *more* for our phone-line rentals than we were 20 years ago?

The answer we're likely to get to these questions will almost certainly be "the cost of infrastructure maintenance and expansion" -- which sounds pretty plausible, or does it?

There may be some light on the horizon though.

As I discovered when I traveled to the USA and UK last year, most mobile phone networks offer a much lower price for intra-network calls than for calls to other networks. In the UK especially, this difference can produce some incredibly low per-minute charges, so long as you're calling someone who uses the same mobile carrier as you.

Vodafone NZ have just launched a new plan that offers this differential pricing. Unfortunately they seem to have taken a wrong-turn and decided that they'll create that differential not so much by dropping their own Vodafone-to-Vodafone call charges as by hiking the Vodafone to Telecom rate.

Sigh!

I wonder if Telecom will reciprocate (retaliate?) by doing the same?

Monopoly, duopoly -- there's not a whole lot of difference really.

If you've got an opinion, why not tell us all in Aardvark Forums.

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!