My friend Rupert Murdoch’s minions at the Wall Street Journal have prepared the “wireless savings calculator” shown above that helps clear some of the mystery of what cellular pricing is really about.

Now I suppose that since Rupert has broadcast interests, the cellular community will just take this as bitterness about their spectrum expansion plans at the expense of broadcast interests. But the reality is that cellular pricing really is a mystery!

Of course the WSJ calculator doesn’t take into account the limited coverage of the carriers in rural areas and that fact that the smaller carriers really have a smaller footprint than the larger carriers. However, most customers probably stick to the places where all 4 carriers have coverage most of the time and for these users it may not matter much.

It also does not cover the new competitive area of replacing phones with new models.