Question about Downloading Web Data

Should the download size, measured in KBs, of a downloaded Web page be
the same regardless of the carrier and cellular phone model used?

During a trip to Israel in November 2006, I rented Motorola i760
phones from Amigo, which provides cellular service through MIRS
Communication Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola Israel. We
were quite pleased with the quality of service and the coverage
provided.

Unfortunately, I just received a bill from Amigo, which charged me an
astronomical amount for Web surfing (yeah, call me a junkie, as does
my wife, along with some other choice names). At my request, I
received a detail for the data charges, which indicates that each
visited Web page equaled exactly 4KB of data. Most of my browsing was
BBC-Mobile News, where the standard format is primarily text, with
maybe a tiny graphic. I was not downloading music or video files.

I used my US cellular phone -- a Samsung A707 Sync, with service
provided by Cingular -- to download many of the same (or similar)
pages as listed on Amigo's detail, and my phone indicated that these
pages seemed to average around 1300-1500 bytes, less than half what
MIRS/Amigo claimed.

Is it possible that the size of the same (or similar) Web page could
vary so much between carriers and cell phone models? If not, I think
MIRS or Amigo may be engaging in some questionable billing practices.

Thanks in advance.



Al

On 29 Jan 2007 10:44:04 -0800, "Al" <alrosenfeld@yahoo.com> wrote in
<1170096244.465686.210950@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups .com>:

>Should the download size, measured in KBs, of a downloaded Web page be
>the same regardless of the carrier and cellular phone model used?

Not necessarily -- web page size can be affected by proxy servers, some
of which can reduce size by higher compression of images, etc. Other
proxies might increase size.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>