from the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The scientists from R.R.R. Conservation Network attached SMS transmitters to 13 eagles to study their migration flight patterns. They aimed to better understand possible threats to the endangered Russian eagle population (the steppe eagle was listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2015).
As the birds migrated four times a day, the scientists received SMS messages with coordinates of the birds' location. They used satellite photos to see where the birds ended up, according to BBC News.
Whenever an SMS message was sent, the Russian phone company MegaFon billed the scientists.
What the scientists didn't count on was one of the tagged birds flying out of range from Kazakhstan to Iran, which ran up huge data roaming charges for the team.
An onslaught of text messages from the bird ended up costing 49 rubles each (approximately 77 cents) -- which was more than five times the expected price, and ended up exceeding the research project's budget, according to The New York Times on Saturday.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday October 28 2019, @06:21PM (1 child)
up to 77c a minute.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @06:30PM
I tried topping the card up a $50, but it couldn't get processed. Was anyone successful in sending any money?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @06:23PM
Imagine it was an eagle from a US satellite. They would have to beg the Americans for forgiveness for breaking sanctions on Iran.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Monday October 28 2019, @07:00PM (4 children)
What is the cost of a SMS for the network provider.
I suspect that sending 1,000,000 SMS will cost less than a dollar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @07:43PM (3 children)
Zero.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Monday October 28 2019, @09:30PM (2 children)
Oh come on. All that billing doesn't come for free.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Tuesday October 29 2019, @08:12AM (1 child)
They used to be free, there wasn't even a text message item on your bill.
You had to go somewhere in the service menu on the first Nokia's.
I used to send texts to my friends instead of voicemail for years before it was ever known to be a thing!
People genuinely thought I hacked the phone system to send it to them, because it would show "system message" on their screen when they got it.
Then they became a selling feature for wireless service...
I figure keeping every single one in a telcom database is why text messages were so expensive!
Anyone want to plot out storage cost per byte VS text message price? I'd be interested:)
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday October 29 2019, @10:24AM
You didn't get it. I didn't say the sending costs something, I said the billing costs something. Of course, if they would not bill the SMS, those billing costs would not be there.
Please adjust your sarcasm detector.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @07:18PM (1 child)
Russia is just secretly transferring drones to Iran
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @08:10PM
Didn't Tom Swift Jr. have to deal with jet powered drones that were disguised to look like large birds?
Somewhere I still have a pretty good collection of the original Tom Swift and T.S. Jr. books, but all the plots kind of melted together over time.
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Monday October 28 2019, @08:09PM
So they essentially strapped a cell phone to an animal to track it? That's stupid. Or smart because of how well they track humans...
Before you know it, these animals will be making app store purchases, in game content purchases, music purchases, and posting on Twitter - which would actually raise the intelligence level there.
It's a good thing the Eagles didn't fly over Atlanta or they would be shot down because Buba and Tyrone got wind that those there animals might have "iPhones" on them.
Is there really no better technology for this? Does everything have to have a cell phone built in to it these days?
Of course, it sounds more to me like their research budget was a box of paperclips and some chewing gum. This whole thing really says more about how insane cellular service charges are.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday October 28 2019, @08:51PM
Eagle Two-Nine approaching asteroid, commander. Eagle Ten descending with nuke.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @10:35PM
Everyone knows the Eagles have no running game.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday October 29 2019, @12:01AM (1 child)
While I'm not sure about the availability in Russia it's not uncommon elsewhere to have subs that include free (or allow for a teenage-girl-level) of messages per month. So why pay per message?
From the BBC article. So a message when the eagle was in Kazakhstan was 15 rubles and went it flew into Iran it was 49 rubles. How did this break the research bank? OK so it's about three times the cost per message but still not exactly a fortune.
Is that some kind of special New York times maths I don't know about there 49 is more then five times 15?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 29 2019, @06:49AM
I'm going to guess it's hard to get the eagles to sign up for a different package when they visit Iran or other countries.
While some stores would help the birds swap the SIMs, in some cases IDs are required so it might be illegal for the eagles... ;)