In rec.arts.sf.science wrote:
First of all, those numbers are purchasing power parity.

Yes, its why I quoted them. If gives us an idea of what they can
afford to spend.

While this gives
a good idea for a person's relative wealth in terms of what they can buy
compared to what you can buy,

It gives us an idea of how much money they have to spend.

it is totally wrong when they're buying
services from you directly,

Bull****, there's a little thing called exchange rates - they're taken
into account..

I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

Purchasing Power Parity takes a particular "basket of goods" which is
considered typical for the average person in each country. The cost of
this basket is then compared, and used to come up with how relatively
powerful each currency is for typical purchases.

In theory the exchange rates over the long term should match up with
purchasing power parity. In practice, it is an inexact science (just which
basket of goods do you choose?) and there are many other factors which
affect exchange rates. The end result is that the two are not always the
same, sometimes wildly different. In the case of China we can see that
they are different by about a factor of three.

because they have to pay you in currency you
can use.

Bull****, you obviously do not understand that the figures I've quoted
take exchange rates into account. There's this thing called the
international market? Yeah, things get bought and sold all the time
between nations. You make it sound like a big ass deal. Its not.

That's right, and the rate at which they can exchange their Renminbi or
Rupees into Dollars is governed by exchange rates, not comparative
purchasing power, so knowing what the GDP is in purchasing power parity is
utterly useless. You need to compare nominal GDP which is the one which
takes those "international markets" into account, if you're interested in
how much actual exchangeable currency they can pay you.

The nomimal per capita GDP of China was $2,001 in 2006, and that
of India in 2004 was only $797.

The numbers I gave are for 2007

True, so mine will be off by some percent.

and they took exchange rates into
account.

False. You shouldn't be quoting numbers if you don't know what they mean.
Purchasing power parity does *not* mean "took exchange rates into
account". The one which does that is called "nominal".

I don't know how you cooked up the numbers you did.

It's quite simple. I got a list of countries by nominal GDP. I then
searched the list for "China" and "India", then found the entries
corresponding to those countries.

And the only reason they're that high (high!) are because the demographics
are extremely uneven. In China you have a comparatively small segment of
urban city-dwellers with incomes which compare much more favorably to US
incomes which drag the average up, followed by an unimaginably enormous
rural population which is, in fact, dirt poor.

You said this before but you lack any evidence to support it.

Give this paper a read:

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/vi...15&context=iir

You'll find graphs on income distribution near the end. The data is a bit
old, from 2001, but things haven't changed *that* much in the past six
years, epsecially out in the countryside. From the distribution of income
it is quite easy to see how the incomes of the two populations differ, and
how those of the city dwellers pulls the average up and hides the true
poverty of the countryside when you're just looking at averages.

Aside from boring academic papers I've also been to China several times,
and the disparity between city and country is really quite amazing, and
I've never even really been to the truly poor parts.

By no coincidence, the city
dwellers also have access to a fine telecommunications infrastructure.

Have you ever been to the Western frontier in China? Used the phone
services there? Tried to use a cell phone? As usual you're talking
out of your ass.

No, I was talking about the *city dwellers*, as in the high density urban
populations found on the *East* coast of China. That Western frontier
would be part of the region I'm characterizing as "dirt poor".

You are also talking out of your ass with your presumption that
competition in terms of quality and feastures and level of service as
well as cost are impossible merely because someone is well served.

Well, I'm making the somewhat implicit assumption that someone rolling out
a totally brand new $50 billion wireless service might not actually manage
to charge one tenth the price as his entrenched competitors, and in fact
will probably need to charge more than they do.

When was the last time
someone with a breakthrough technology that dramatically altered
fundamental pricing structures and service levels DIDN'T make money?

You have yet to show why your system would be cheaper or how it would be
fundamentally different in any way from what we have now. "Works from
anywhere" is nifty but not world shaking compared to "works from *almost*
anywhere".

that the rich urban dwellers

In any population you have a distribution of income. That doesn't
make those with more 'rich' by any stretch of the imagination.

"Rich" is a relative and quite loose term. Compared to the farmers in the
countryside, the city people with their phones and TVs and DVD players and
computers and grocery stores and subways are quite rich.

make up an even smaller proportion of the
population and the telecommunications infrastructure they have access to
is therefore somewhat worse.

Your facile analysis misses key points. First off, my system cost is
$40 billion. Cost is far less than 1/4% per year - $100 million to
operate the system once in place. The system provides 50 billion
channels of capacity. Crank in a $4 billion ROI annually and you see
you can deliver a wireless channel anywhere for a penny a month.
That's your nut. Now how many people can afford a penny a month?

Yes, that is quite... nutty.

Forget the satellites for a moment, I'd love to see your design for a
billing system which can sustain itself on twelve cents per year per
customer, let alone pass any money on to HQ.

At the kind of cost I'm describing, and with the kind of availability
I'm talking about, do you think the owner of this system could find
ways to compete against existing providers? Obviously yes. Yet you
would have us believe such competition is impossible.

If we take all of your facts as a given, that you can make enough of your
own money to put up this system, that you can maintain it for a tiny
fraction of the installation price (what's the lifetime of your
satellites, by the way?), that you can turn a profit by charging people a
dollar a year, sure, you'd crush all competition and win the game.

However, you've yet to give any reasons *why* this will all work at a
dollar a year with eleventy billion subscribers, instead of turning out
more like Iridium and squeezing out a living at hundreds of dollars a
month from a couple of hundred thousand subscribers.

And of course there are very few people who make $600/month.

got data? Just wondering.

My data on average GDP was provided previously, my data on income
distribution was provided earlier in this message.

Fact is, the average is reported by the world bank and others as being
$600 per month in China - purchasing parity - Thats what on average a
person can spend in China.

That is wrong. That is the number of dollars which will buy, in the US,
what the average person can buy in China. But the actual number of dollars
you'd get from exchanging his Yuan would be much lower, because goods are
much cheaper there, even taking exchange rates into account.

Is there a distribution around that average? Sure. Do you have the
figures? Do you? No. Well, I will tell you. It falls off steeply
and its bell shaped. ITs not bimodal as you suggest.

It's not very bell shaped, as I have shown you.

Fact is, half the population make more than $600 per month and half
the population make less.

Let's start with an incorrect assumption!

that's what average mean - assuming its not
bimodal or skewed. Which it ain't.

And then add another one!

In fact something like 80% of the
population make more than $300 per month - that's $10 per day - PER
PERSON

To come up with unfounded conclusions!

- which means little Genji Woo can talk to her friends nights
and weekends for $1 per MONTH.

Toss in a little cultural cluelessness and the result is fun!

and a
whole lot of people making much less who absolutely couldn't afford such a
thing.

You are doing a lot of handwaving but providing precious little data.
The cost of telecom services of the type you are speaking of are $100
to $200 per month - and its true that only a very few can afford
that.

I don't know what services you think I'm talking about but I can assure
you I'm not talking about anything that expensive. Unlimited cellular
broadband can be had in the US for about $60/month, and somewhat slower
service can be had for about $40/month.

Well the numbers I gave are averages. There is a distirbution around
that average. Over half make $600 per month or more in china =per
person= and more than 80% make $300 per month or more in china [per
person]

Life is fun when you make assumptions! Why bother looking up the actual
distribution? It's too hard!

for someone who's talking about
investing fifty billion dollars of his own money, which of course he
doesn't have yet.

You don't know what I have.

I know you don't show up on the list of the world's X richest men. Maybe
you've just hidden your $50 billion very well... right....

I wish you all the success

No you don't otherwise you would make **** up just so you could call
me clueless and paranoid! haha..Freaking liar.

You don't have to believe it, but it's true. Insanely cheap high-speed
internet service via a gigantic constellation of LEO satellites would be
wonderful. It's not going to happen in my lifetime, but it would be great
if it did.

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software