Four years ago, I did a back of the envelope calculation on +how +much it would cost to store audio recordings of all the phone calls in +Norway, and came up with NOK 2.1 million / EUR 250 000 for the +year 2013. It is time to repeat the calculation using updated +numbers. The calculation is based on how much data storage is needed +for each minute of audio, how many minutes all the calls in Norway +sums up to, multiplied by the cost of data storage.
+ +The number of phone call minutes for 2018 was fetched from +the NKOM statistics +site, and for 2018, land line calls are listed as 434 238 000 +minutes, while mobile phone calls are listed with 7 542 006 000 +minutes. The total number of minues is thus 7 976 244 000. For +simplicity, I decided to ignore any advantages in audio compression te +last four years, and continue to assume 60 Kbytes/min as the last +time.
+ +Storage prices still varies a lot, but as last time, I decide to +take a reasonable big and cheap hard drive, and double its price to +include the surrounding costs into account. A 10 TB disk cost less +than 4500 NOK / 450 EUR these days, and doubling it give 9000 NOK per +10 TB.
+ +So, with the parameters in place, lets update the old table +estimating cost for calls in a given year:
+ +| Year | Call minutes | Size | Price in NOK / EUR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 24 000 000 000 | 1.3 PiB | 1 170 000 / 117 000 |
| 2012 | 18 000 000 000 | 1.0 PiB | 900 000 / 90 000 |
| 2013 | 17 000 000 000 | 950 TiB | 855 000 / 85 500 |
| 2018 | 7 976 244 000 | 445 TiB | 401 100 / 40 110 |
Both the cost of storage and the number of phone call minutes have +dropped since the last time, bringing the cost down to a level where I +guess even small organizations can afford to store the audio recording +from every phone call taken in a year in Norway. Of course, this is +just the cost of buying the storage equipment. Maintenance, need to +be included as well, but the volume of a single year is about a single +rack of hard drives, so it is not much more than I could fit in my own +home. Wonder how much the electricity bill would raise if I had that +kind of storage? I doubt it would be more than a few tens of thousand +NOK per year.
+