SMS messages are more expensive then data transmission from Hubble Space Telescope

A University of Leicester space scientist has worked out that sending SMS texts via mobile phones seems to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope. The fact is that phone companies charge you few cents for like 160 characters text message what is about 140 bytes of information. As there is about 1048576 bytes in megabyte, then this is about 7490 text messages. Now multiply that number by your operators cost per one SMS message and you will now how much 1MB transfer cost for you. Let's say you pay 5 cents per message, and then 1Mb is worth about £374. As they say this is 4.4 times more expensive than data transfer from Hubble Space Telescope.

Actually NASA gave their figure of costs per megabyte for data transfer from HST to Earth which is 8.85£ but this doesn't include cost of ground stations. So the real cost figures between £8.85 and £85.

Actually these are some cool facts you wouldn't think about. And hell yes - the cost of phone text messages is really astronomical. [physorg]