Reuters On Telephone Cultures 508
mamladm writes "Reuters has an interesting article about the Differences in Telephone Cultures between the US and Europe.
It describes how the different regulatory frameworks have created distinct cultures on how telephones are being used in the US versus Europe. The article mainly discusses mobile phone usage, though."
Re:Revenue (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps it's 50% more people and a 400% higher population density.
Of course! Different costs (Score:5, Insightful)
Old habits will die hard. I think Europeans will continue to use the phone for messages rather than as a surrogate for being there.
Re:Revenue (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, more EU residents have cells than US residents do. With the differences they're citing, it's no wonder, seeing as America generally has a better POTS than Europe. In the US, it costs just a little bit of money to have unlimited local and incoming calls on a land-line, plus it never has an error, ever, of any sort. So, it's not much of a surprise that the US has slightly lower cell uptake.
Well, that's the difference, isn't it. (Score:4, Insightful)
"...The article mainly discusses mobile phone usage, though."
Well, that's the thing, then, isn't it? In the US, dirt is pretty cheap and plentiful, so land lines and wires that require poles to by strung up everywhere have predominated where the relative scarcity of space in European and Japanese cities has forced a much higher adoption rate for mobile technologies.
Tell me if I'm wrong, eh?
Re:Revenue (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
"Why call when you can walk next store or just find them down at the pub?"
Why walk next store or down to the pub to try to find them, when you could just ring them and be certain they're there?
The real reasons for the differences ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Revenue (Score:5, Insightful)
Now move to Europe. If they are to implement standards as a whole, they need to reach all of the European rural areas, just how it hasn't been reached in the US. As the article explains, those areas have been reached there. Whether you're in no-mans land in Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Malta, Lithuania etc... you're connected.
Again my point is that population density doesn't matter much-- land area itself matters more. While a higher population in rural areas (high population rural areas?) would increase incentive for a company to spread there, that only matters so far. Every bit of land you don't cover, even where the population density is zero, will make you lose customers in the more populated areas. I'm from a rural area in Maine. I live in upstate NY. I did not buy a Verizon plan because it did not service my Maine location. Think I'm the only one? Nah.
Oh yeah oh yeah. Poland too.
Re:Enough Cell Phones!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Digging and closing holes to fit many many miles of telephone wire will lead to a fair amount of fuel being used. Also, the copper wires have to be produced which is quite energy intensive too.
I have no idea on the total energy and monetery requirement to operate a mobile vs a land-based service, but I do have a gut feeling that the mobile service will be cheaper to construct in both aspects.
Of course, there is quite a lot of pre-existing landline infrastructure, but that will have to be replaced some day, and new infrastructure is also required when new areas are built up. If you'd have to start from scratch, the mobile solution seems cheaper and faster to construct... many emerging nations even skip most of the landline phase.
Re:Well, that's the difference, isn't it. (Score:3, Insightful)
By contrast, the EU and Japan had half of all there infrastructure destroyed a bit before the fifties (see if you can guess why!) and then had a chance to rebuild with something newer.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
No news here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Revenue (Score:1, Insightful)
Wow, advanced EU features! (Score:2, Insightful)
And I'd like to know what magic allows a phone to work at "the bottom of a salt mine in Poland." It doesn't matter whether you use GSM or a mix of three different standards, it's difficult to push a signal through tons of rock (which was alluded to the problem on "trains", which I take are really subway trains).
talk is cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the effects of US market saturation with landlines before mobiles appeared, compared to Europe's many "first time callers" without any phones when mobiles were first offered? How about Europeans many languages, in which people can more easily communicate with short SMS messages, rather than demanding interactive multilingual voice calls? Or the role mobile phones play in teenage consumer cultures, in car-hungry America vs. poorer teenage Europe?
No, none of those answers would blame the government for interfering with culture. Some of them might even blame corporations for bad service! And when you get your info from a London telco marketer and an FCC PR flack, why would you bother to validate that solid-gold wisdom "from the horse's mouth"?
Re:The real reasons for the differences ... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is complete and utter bullshit. I dare you to back it up.
in the long run I believe the US approach is better
Yeah? Well I believe the opposite, so there!Gee, this is a fun and constructive way of arguing, isn't it?
Standardization has short term advantages, but in the long term it is more important to promote technological development.
You make it sound like there is some kind of mutual exclusion there. Well, you try to, at least.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're using a prepaid card, you call the 800 number for that card, dial your code, and then the number. Credit card? Dial 0 (operator), or the number of a LD company you want to use, and tell them to place a credit call. None of these strike me as difficult.
I admit that we don't have card readers in our phones, but then, I don't think its that hard to dial a number and then punch in the proper code to place a call. Every phone I ever recall seeing has exactly how to do each of these listed on the placard, too.
Kinda a moot point, anyway, considering the phone booth is a dying breed.
Re:Well, that's the difference, isn't it. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he isn't; the high installation and service costs of wired infrastructure drove analog cellular network adoption in Europe and Japan in the 1980s, and network congestion drove the switch to digital cellular networks in the 1990s. I was there; apparently, you weren't.
So, Europe and Japan waited until about 1985 to start rebuilding their damaged infrastructure, did they? Or do you think they had cellular phone networks in mind from 1945 onwards when they were making things work again?
Re:The real reasons for the differences ... (Score:3, Insightful)
About 20 years ago the country with the most phone (land) lines per 1000 inhabitants was Norway (about 650 then), followed by Finland and Sweden. The U.S. was quite far behind. Regions like the former communist East Germany were at 92 phone lines per 1000 inhabitants, about the same as Uruguay, and the waiting lists to finally get a phone were long. It was easier to inherit a land line from someone than to apply for and get a new one. Most of the limits were put there with the old telephone system which couldn't handle more than five numbers for a local call.
When East Germany turned Communism down, the number of available landlines was still lagging far behind the demand, and people still waited one year or longer to finally get one. But cell phones were available in the towns quite soon, and people were running for them, thus making cell phones a normality in East Germany far more early than West Germany.
This would actually support your claim: Bad land line infrastructure leads to increased cell phone usage.
But: Why is Finland leading cell phone usage today (followed by Norway and Sweden), when they had one of the best and most widespread land line system 20 years ago? It can't be just the patriotic pride to be home to Nokia and Ericsson
Re:Enough Cell Phones!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
If a cellphone saves a trip to somewhere - say back to the store to get a forgotton item - then energy is quite clearly saved.
Mobile communications are critical in reducing the amount of energy consumed per GDP. FedEx, Construction workers, Employees in large factories - all use mobiles to be more effecient - which inevitably saves energy.
Your Greenpeace instincts are right - your data is wrong.
AIK
Re:Enough Cell Phones!!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Of course! Different costs (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, adding on a special billing infrastructure for sender-pays, even for local calls, would have been a hard sale when the cellphones were first being produced. Since local calls are free in the US. Making it cost the caller to call early-adoptors on a cellphone is going to be a non-starter --- especially when the value of the cellphone is for the recipient.
Besides, why use a cellphone over a landline unless it has more value for you --- ergo, worth paying to both receive and send calls.
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Land lines in the US are overwhelmingly crystal clear, regardless of when and where you call from. In almost all cases, bad quality is on the phone, not the phone line. I have no idea what the percentages are, but I think almost everyone has gone cordless these days and that's where you here cracks and pops, faded connections, and interference. It has nothing to do with the actual land line, at least not in 99.9999% of cases.
And I also agree with the other posts to this thread, calling in the US is about as easy as it gets. It's the same no matter where you are. The only difference lies in whether you need 10 digit dialing to make a local call. But you ought to be able to approach any phone, any where and use it just like the last phone you used.
jeff
Re:Do you have a land-line? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, there are any number of words. You can call it a telephone line, for starters. Everybody understands that.
POTS is clear to me but not obvious to others
Avoid acronyms. Always. It's just a good rule of thumb. Once your grandmother knows an acronym, it's okay to use it: DVD, ATM. Until then, use actual words. Don't say "POTS." Say "telephone line."
Re:Well, Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
But what really drove me mad was this whole thing another poster described above "Welcome to *insert whichever long distance operator*. Please enter your major credit card or calling card number." *fighting with entering the card number* *wait* Depending on the operator: "The card number you gave is not valid. Thank you for playing." (back then either Sprint or MCI didn't take non-US credit card numbers, but amazingly not everytime but apparently depending on the geographic region you were in inside the US). So retry, this time trying to reach some other long distance operator using some prefix number, playing again the CC number game, getting thrown out of the system in the middle of the process for no apparent reason, lather rinse repeat. I really liked my stay in the US, but the telephone system really drove me mad.
From phoning home in several European countries I was used to either just put in a half truckload of coins and phone away or getting a calling card that works troughout the whole country and not only for phones of a certain provider, dial my home number with the respective country prefix, and voila ! instant success.
As said before, most likely it got better in the meantime, but back then it really really sucked.
Re:Enough Cell Phones!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's my gut feeling as well. Which is why I wonder why GSM calls are (still) an order of magnitude more expensive than POTS calls?
Just like CDs never became cheaper than LPs when the technology matured. And where's my damn flying car?
Re:Do you have a land-line? (Score:3, Insightful)
Least useful nitpick ever.
It is completely acceptable to use an acronym.
It is only acceptable to use acronyms which are in common usage. All others should be avoided.
POTS is far more descriptive than "telephone line"
Typical nerd rationalization. "It doesn't matter if no one understands me. I'm more precise!"