Calling Cell Phones Could Cost More 328
tusixoh writes "CNN.com reports on another reason to keep a close eye on your phone bill. This fall, a subtle realignment in America's phone systems could cause a dramatic increase in what we pay to call cell phones that were once considered local now incur higher toll charges from landlines. The report states that it is unclear how many customers will be affected by these changes. No phone company would provide details on where people could be affected." Update: 10/25 12:31 GMT by M : The IP list carried a couple of informative articles on this: the original situation, and the informed commentary.
This is how it works in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
(Fot those in EU US cell phones have regular numbers and are called at regular rates, often free from your local area code)
Because of this, you can practically get a phone for free with no contract, so this model has its up sides. Personally, I prefer the US approach, he who has the phone foots the (monthly) bill!
Ditto (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/business/daily/10
Re:Europe (Score:2, Informative)
unless you are travelling(to foreign countries), then it depends on the operators, and if you don't know for sure the prices are just guesswork. and in my country there's not even that nasty phone tying, where operator gives you a practically free phone but you're 0wn3d when it comes to fees per minute. sure you pay a bit more for the phone but it's not 'locked' to a certain operator and you end up using it more(benefitting everyone)..
it's actually pretty convinient(sp?) for the cell phone owner, as you can predict your phone costs to the last cent, and using the phone doesn't get that expensive compared to landline either. which could have contributed the massive move to cellphones in countries like finland.
however, here you do know that you are calling a cellphone when you are calling a number(different prefix). and in my country calling to local numbers was never free anyways even with landline as i understand has been in usa/some other countries.
*geek needs sleep*
Re:Europe (Score:5, Informative)
For example, in Finland each wireless carrier has its own area code, so you know in advance that you will pay more for the call.
The change in the US means that calls to cell phones might become regional or long distance, but the called party still pays. The US is NOT switching to calling party pays (although Verizon tried it in DE a while back, AFAIK).
Wait till you use it in another country (Score:5, Informative)
In the UK if i go abroad with my UK cellphone say for arguments sake Spain and you call me from anywhere then you will only pay the standard premium cost (approx 40p per min) but as my phone is officially "roaming" as its in another country, I have to pay for the international part of your call to cover the multiple network operators involved ie: the price of a international call from England to Spain so ineffect its like a reverse charge call !
and you feel ripped off!
a lot of people have been caught out when their friends have called them while they are on holiday and they chat thinking its a regular call until they get home and see their cellphone bill and see hideous charges incurred for other peoples calls, needless to say sales calls get a mouthful of abuse.
Re:one more reason... (Score:1, Informative)
Bye - Bye Standard Land Lines (Score:4, Informative)
It's nice to be free from those local phone service bastards.
Re:As Cell Plans Get Cheaper (Score:4, Informative)
I have done some research recently (my contract is coming to an end). In order to improve my (AT&T) plan I have to do a 2 year commitment, otherwise it is *at best* the same as my current contract. Others companies are about the same, it comes down to quality of coverage in your area, I suppose.
Oh, yeah, if anything, currently every plan I have seen has extended peak time last until 9pm rather than 8pm. So I would say cell plans gotten a bit more expensive...
You all have it wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
It's only if you are calling a number whose physical switch is outside your local landline calling area.
For example, I'll take Delaware as an example since it's dead simple. Three counties, three rate centers. If you have a cell phone whose number is from county #1, then county #2 and #3 pay normal intra-lata rates to call your number. Users in county #1 will continue to not pay.
In Delaware, cell companies give you a choice what county you want your number from so most people get one in the same county they live.
Let's take another theoretical example. Let's say you live in Benson AZ and your cell phone number is from Tucscon. It's a toll call from Benson to Tucson for landline users, but since Benson isn't big enough to have its own infrastructure for basing cell phone NUMBERS out of it (not towers), then the charges to call a cell phone based in Tucson from a landline in Benson were waived.
(Above just being an example of a small town with no local calling to its neighboring big town that I know, it's not a literal example)
Re:Wait till you use it in another country (Score:2, Informative)
Well, in the US, people on mobile phones always pay for their incoming calls. The minutes you get per month are for both outgoing and incoming calls, and if you're roaming, it doesn't matter who called whom. And we don't feel ripped off, because we're used to paying for our half of the connection.
This brings up an interesting situation. I was living in the UK for a semester, from the US, and my dad would call my UK-based mobile phone. He was on a 10-cents-to-Europe plan, so he expected to be charged 10 cents per minute. Well, that's not what happened -- he had to pay per-minute international mobile charges. These were essentially the same charges UK land-line owners pay to call UK mobile phones, but three times as much. He fought the charges, and since AT&T didn't really understand international mobile calls, he won.
But what should have happened? I'd suspect US land-line callers to UK mobile phones should pay a higher rate. Otherwise who's paying for the mobile connection?
Did anyone read the article? It's *worse* (Score:4, Informative)
Did anyone read the article? What the phone companies did is *worse* than that. They eliminated something that *will* affect many dialup ISP users. Not to mention all those companies in New York City that pay not to have their area changed (although that's a whole other story)...
What the local phone companies are getting rid of is "reverse billing." This is a service which allows a company located in Region A to offer a phone number in Region B by paying the difference in cost for phone calls made to their Region B number. When cell phone companies first started up, they only had callable offices in relatively few locations, which could have made calling cell phones expensive. Nowadays, this is not a bit deal anymore.
Unfortunately, a lot of other firms like using reverse lookups. ISPs use reverse billing to allow them to have phone numbers all over the place while maintaining only a few central dialup pools. Outreach programs often use these numbers to reach out to communities that they would not have been able to easily call them otherwise.
Personally, I feel (*hope*) that CNN seems to be missing some details. If the phone companies truely are getting rid of reverse billing, one would think that they would be getting rid of all their 800/888/877/866 numbers that are *entirely* reverse billed down to pay phone costs. And if a cell phone provider with a central switch in Region A serves customers in region A', and said switch is located in region A, I don't see why reverse billing would come into play; the cell phone company would be like any other large business that just happened to own a few hundred phone numbers in the area.
My "almost perfect" phone bill. (Score:3, Informative)
My last phone bill? $76.69. Same as the month before it. And that included standard local telephone service, unpublished number, voice mail (with telephone or web access to pick up messages and pager/email notification), caller id, call waiting, 3-way calling, speed dial, anonymous call rejection, and maybe another feature or two I don't remember. (I still remember SBC billing me for "touch tone". Bastards.)
On top of that, I now get free calling 24x7 to anywhere within my area code. And free calling 24x7 to anywhere within my state. And free calling 24x7 to anywhere within the continental United States. Frankly, the only thing I have to worry about is accidently calling a Canadian number.
My last phone bill had 1,739 minutes of long distance in 249 calls, for an added fee of only $0.00. And no, I didn't have to just call members of the plan. This was the rate to absolutely any regular telephone number in the US.
I was on SBC's "local plus" plan, which billed me about $30/month extra on top of basic telephone service to call anywhere within my area code for free. Now, I'm saving money, got tons more features, and don't have to worry about fluctuating phone bills. Thank God.
Yes, I know. This absolutely isn't the perfect plan for everyone. But MCI's The Neighborhood really has a lot going for it if you've got a regular phone bill that is at least $70. I wish their financial condition was better. I'd like to see them tear SBC a new hole.
That's quite OK actually... (Score:2, Informative)
How much (on average) does an outgoing call from your mobile costs? Please provide explanation such as within same area code or otherwise, service operator, etc.
Do you get charged for incoming calls as well?
Do you have prepaid packages? How popular is it and what are its pros and cons?
I live in Malaysia and work in Singapore, and I use prepaid packages for cellphone usage. In Malaysia, I'm using the HotLink [activateyourlife.com.my] package from Maxis [maxis.com.my], where as in Singapore I use the M Card [m1.com.sg] by M1 [m1.com.sg]. A significant difference between the two is that in Singapore, they actually charge for incoming calls, something that doesn't happen in Malaysia.
Which method does the mobile operators in your countries follow?
Re:Another way to rip off consumers (Score:5, Informative)
To answer your question, until 11/24/2002 phone numbers, for the most part, are given out in 10K blocks (NPA/Nxx) to specific compaines; wireline, wireless, whatever. In theory, if you know the first six digits of the phone number, you can tell if it's wireless or wireline. That is, if you have access to that information (like I do). To the best of my knowledge, I don't think people outside of Telcos have access to this so the point is moot.
After 11/24, all Telcos will be participating in number pooling. Basically we donate numbers back to the pool for other carriers to use (if we're only using 50 numbers out of 10K) and whatever we still use is routed back to us via local number portability. So now even if you had the aforementioned information, it could be invalid. Basically your screwed one way or the other.
To further complicate matters, after 11/24/2003 all numbers will be portable between any carrier within a rate center. So you can move your number from (ex.) Verizon landline to AT&T Wireless to Nextel, to AT&T Local Services...and on and on....as many times as you'd like. By then, it's impossible to know.
Re:Yet another reason... (Score:4, Informative)
You can turn a cell phone off and the calls will still get voice mail. Landline phones just keep ringing and ringing, which is not good when telemarketers call very early on weekend mornings.
Also, most cell phones include caller-ID for free. This makes it easy to screen calls that you don't want (in your case, just let your Boss go through to voice mail).
As for your complaint about drivers with cell phones, there are earphones that allow a driver to keep both hands on the wheel.
Think of how much faster people are able to call 911 to report a stranded motorist or a crime being committed and how many lives are saved because of cell phones.
As for reception, if that's a big concern then get a phone that still works on the non-digital 800MHZ band where there's coverage across most of the US, even in very rural areas.
Even Rougher on the Land Lines in Japan (Score:5, Informative)
Most folks don't even bother getting a land line since you have to actually purchase the line for about $600.00+. Calling a local land line is about 3 cents per minute and calling a cell phone is around 10 to 12 cents per minute. Cell phones have a completely different prefix, so you won't accidentally get raped on the bill. The flip side of course is that outgoing calls on cell phones run about 20 cents per minute and you won't find any 4000 night/weekend plans around here. My plan is 5000 yen/mo. (about $38 at the current rate) and I get around 200 outgoing minutes excluding the 1 to 2 yen per email charge and my daily web activities checking news and weather. If I have a busy social calendar, which is about 4 dates per week plus assorted work functions, my bill is arround $100.00. I never use my land line for anything more than a link to my 12MBit ADSL provider.
Re:Wow, you're an asswipe! (Score:3, Informative)
I would not put up with someone chewing me out for not answering my cellphone any more than I would for not answering my home landline phone. It's my phone and my time; I choose when to or not to answer it.
If it is a work-related issue, then the company can pay for the cell phone, and pay a good bonus for placing me on-call. If the company is not willing to do that, then designated work hours are their time and all other hours are my time to do with as I please, which includes choosing to not answer hte phone if I don't want to.
Re:Europe (Score:3, Informative)
All in all, it's just another way to eat at your wallet. I cancelled my AT&T phone because of the outrageous charges, constricting rules and stupid taxes. Yeah, I miss it, but I don't feel like I need to ice down my ass every month after being raped by the cell phone company.
Re:Europe (Score:3, Informative)
For example, for $40/mo, Cingular Wireless offer 500 anytime minutes, and 3000 night and weekend minutes. Any unused minutes roll over to next month. You also get free long distance, free roaming, and I beleive the first minute on incoming calls is free. I think 3500 minutes is more than most people can use in a month. Verizon, while they don't get free roaming, offer 300 anyime, 4000 night and weekend, and 1000 mobile to mobile minutes for $40/mo.
Also, the cell phone companies have promos all the time where you can get stuff like unlimited night and weekend or unlimited mobile to mobile if you sign up during the promo. So sure incoming calls count against your minutes, but with the sheer amount of minutes given out these days it's not really a big concern.
O2 homezone (Score:2, Informative)
I live in Germany and I think my cell company really has the right ideas. O2 (the former Viag Interkom) is offering the so-called Homezone plan.
This means that whenever I am at home I have special conditions. "Being home" here depends on the density of the cell network in your area (sometimes the homezone has a radius of 2km).
The phone will have the common mobile prefix, which costs more, if you call that number. However, when I am in the homezone, I can also be reached under a local fixed-line number. When I'm on the road, calls to that number will be forwarded to voice mail for free or to the phone (but I will have to pay the transfer then). You probably think this might be super-expensive. Let me just quote some prices from their site (all in Euro, but Euro:$ is almost 1:1 anyway atm):
monthly fee: 12.95
local minute price (homezone): 0.03-0.05
long distance (homezone): 0.04-0.07
on the road minute price: 0.07-0.49
calls to other mobiles: 0.19-0.59
http://www.genion.de/genion/genion/genion__product s/genion__home/tarife/index.html [genion.de]
The ranges depend on time of day and week, as well as other options you choose (local, city, mobile)
Oh, and when I extended my contract for another 24 months, I only had to pay 200 Euro for a brand new SonyEricsson T68i.