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.
As Cell Plans Get Cheaper (Score:3, Interesting)
Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Other places do this, but better... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's how it works:
This is one reason mobiles are more common overseas. They didn't just start as executive toys. For example, workmen on call sites could be given a prepaid phone (with viturally no money on it), and then be reachable.
Yet another reason... (Score:4, Interesting)
Cell phones are not very reliable. Calls are dropped all of the time. I've had conversations where one of the two parties involved has had to call back two, three, even four times because of lost reception. Also, many towns don't want cell towers, so you may find while driving down I-95 that certain areas just kill your cell phone's reception.
I also don't *want* to be reached sometimes, especially by a boss or other superior. Cellphones eliminate that freedom because you're always "plugged in" to the (digital)/(rest of the) world. That means eight hour work days turn into 9 hour work days, and you may get a call while at a baseball game on Saturday or church Sunday morning.
I just set-up my personal voicemail box today (2 or 3 months into the school year), but that was only because my mom was about to disown me if I didn't do so. I tell her I prefer email, but she prefers the phone. So, I can't win there, and she's my mom, so
I also don't like people who can barely drive to begin with to use cellphones on the road. I know there have been studies that show it's worse than driving drunk!
Anyway, this ends my rant...sorry for running-on so terribly, but I really hate cellphones
Eric Krout [erickrout.com] dot com, ya'll...
$crewing the Customer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:SWITCH! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:one more reason... (Score:2, Interesting)
Check out Vonage... (Score:1, Interesting)
This is *exactly* the reason that I switched to Vonage from my phone provider (PacBell) -- because calling cell phones were getting too expensive.
With Vonage you can check your calls online, get any area code prefix you want in the USA (how cool is that), setup voice mail and forwarding online, and lots of other goodies. Plus, having a flat rate per month for the entire US doesn't hurt either :)
The system has worked well for me so far, with only minor artifacts in the sound quality under pretty heavy traffic on the cable modem.
NZ too (Score:2, Interesting)
Be careful! (Score:1, Interesting)
What happened is that some drunk redneck or gangbanger or something blew apart the local McDonalds sign with a shotgun.
However, what you didn't know is that cell phone towers are hidden in places like that -- the only indicator is a little notch or a light in the sign.
I spent hours talking on my phone during the time, which I thought was free, but since the McDonalds sign was destroyed, it went ROAMING. I had a $600 phone bill that month, which I tried to explain and still refused to pay, so they disconnected me.
I am now currently phoneless, but with GAIM and email, I'm ok.
Re:Europe (Score:2, Interesting)
Making land-line callers in the US pay more to call a mobile phone is bullshit. In the US, mobile phone users are already paying for their side of the connections, so this is double-charging consumers.
Re:As Cell Plans Get Cheaper (Score:4, Interesting)
Then I got bills in the hundreds of dollars - about twice what I was paying! Plus there were certain 'family talk' charges attached to my bill that, on inspection "really didn't belong there" (the reps words).
It really pisses me off that we don't have a strong enough consumer arm in the government that allows me protection from these scams. I told them that, since they broke our contract because they did not disclose the terms to me up front, I'd really rather break mine. I was informed that if I did that I would have to pay about $300 for the two phones they 'gave' me.
This, of course, after waiting the requisite twenty minutes to even speak to a human. I didn't even try to do that on my cell phone, since the reception is lousy in my area and the probability that I would get disconnected in those twenty minutes is about 0.9.
So, kids, spend twenty minutes each month scouring your phone bill - all 15 pages of it - to see if there are line items in there, overcharges, and general assault on your pocketbook.
It reminds me of the comic strip in which Dilbert dons a ninja outfit to comply with the terms of his ISP contract that specify that he must perform a commando raid on the company to cancel his service.
To their credit, the rep was very nice, sympathetic (I imagine she's thinking "God, I am such a troll for working here!"), and once we identified the mass of overcharges for the past 3 months, she dutifully credited my account. It only took half an hour.
Varied Rate Calls (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't a big deal here (Score:4, Interesting)
1-AAA-333-1234
might be local, while
1-AAA-444-1234
is a long distance call. In these area codes, the three digit "prefix" after the area code is what determines where you are calling, and calling between certain pairs of prefixes is long distance.
How does this apply to cell phones? In very geographically spread-out area codes, cell phone service providers do not necessarily have a prefix in every fare zone. Returning to the example, a cell phone company might have the prefix 1-AAA-455, which is local from a 444- phone, but not a 333- phone.
In these situations, people living in the 333 calling area might be assigned 455 cell phone numbers, which would be long distance when called from a local phone. In the past, what happened is that if someone called 455 from a 333 phone, the cell phone provider would be "reverse billed" for the long distance charges. Cell providers didn't mind this because it didn't happen very often, and because they hoped it would lead to cell phone adoption in new markets (in which they might eventually install their own equipment and get their own prefix).
Now what's happening is that the land-line providers want to end the reverse billing, primarily because it is very complicated to implement. In particular, there are going to be some changes whereby people will get to keep their cell phone numbers even if they switch mobile phone companies. When this happens, the existing implementation of reverse billing will not work any more--things are complicated by the fact that now a call to 455 might need to be reverse billed to one of several different cell phone companies.
Since reverse billing is so rare anyway, the land line companies successfully lobbied to stop implementing it.
Note that this is very different from say, Europe, where calling a cell phone is always more expensive than calling a local land line. All that's happening is that there will be some fare zones in which it is impossible to get a cell phone number. So some people may not be able to call any cell phones free from their land lines. However, for any particular cell phone there will always be land lines somewhere that can call it with a local call.
In any event, highly populated areas with overlay area codes (where calling accross area codes is not long distance) should see no change in how calls to cell phones are billed.
Why that solution isn't better (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh goody. I get to post my favorite rant on why "caller pays" isn't better. In a nutshell, here's why:
When the person who owns the cellphone pays for their own calls, they have a strong incentive to seek out the cheapest plan they can get. Hence, they put direct pressure on their cellphone company to be more efficient and keep their operating costs as low as possible.
When the person who owns the cellphone doesn't pay for the call, the charges for the call are "reverse-billed" back to the caller. Since the caller isn't a customer of the cellphone company, the cellphone company has far less incentive to keep the reverse-charges low. (Ever notice that collect calls are more expensive than regular long-distance calls? A similar economic principle is at work.) Typically the government steps in to regulate the prices that companies are allowed to charge, and that's rarely as efficient as direct competition.
I'm convinced that over the long-run, the "caller-pays" system will result in higher costs than a "cellphone-owner-pays" system. This depends, of course, on the remaining competitive barriers coming down: in the US, for instance, it's still too difficult to switch from one provider to the other. Hopefully the new regulations which allow cellphone owners to switch providers without losing their phone number will help in this area.
Incidentally, if my explanation didn't make sense, here's a much more detailed explanation [slashdot.org].
It goes without saying, then . . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Caller pays leads to higher charges (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in the US and use Vonage VoIP. I've noticed that Vonage charges me only 5 cents/minute to call a UK landline, but a whopping 23 cents/minute to call a UK cellphone. It's possible that Vonage is inserting some sort of markup there, but given that their rates are generally bare-bones low, it would appear that British cellphone companies are charging (close to) 18 cents/minute to simply provide service from the cellphone tower to the handset-- not including the long distance charges. That's a lot.
Here's my question: what do you do if you feel that cost is too high? Under the US system, when my phone bills are too high I look for a cheaper provider (the mere threat of this keeps prices low.) If the prices are too high in the UK, it looks to me like you have a whole lot less recourse. Either you shell out that 18 cents/minute, or you don't call other peoples' cellphones at all. Where are these charges set, anyway-- does the government mandate the charges?
It seems as though you've got a lot more leverage over your cellphone company's charges when you pay for all the costs vs. when there's reverse-billing going on. Theoretically, this should lead to a more competitive and therefore more efficient US cellphone industry, which benefits us all.