Re: Update on cell phone in Europe (cross-posted)

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:ZudAk.410$eb4.313@flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com...
> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>
>> That works, but I don't think it is all that cheap. I believe
>> GeoSim uses numbers from a Manx or Channel Islands mobile operator,
>> and that MyGlobalTalk charges 38 cents/minute to forward calls
>> to those, so the fact that you aren't charged by the mobile
>> company doesn't help so much. I believe it also costs a $20-something
>> per year maintenance fee to keep the GeoSIM alive.
>
> Yes, 37.9¢ per minute. But it's $1.29 per minute roaming on Verizon, more
> than 3x as much. Calling mobile phones in Europe is always a bit costly
> because of the insane way the mobile operators are allowed to bill over
> there with "caller pays."

In what way is that "insane"

ISTM that called party pays is the insane way, no other item that you buy
charges this way!

tim

"Ian F." <wowfabgroovy@googlemail.com> wrote in news:6jesmfF30n7lU1
@mid.individual.net:

> What difference does it make what their politics are?
>
>

Check your wallet.....

"Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote in news:JPadne0--
e8p0k_VnZ2dnUVZ_jCdnZ2d@comcast.com:

> It can mean that you
> might have to wait two or three years to get non-emergency (elective)
> surgery. It can also mean that the government decides whether you live
> or die.
>

Precisely, where is this true? I've had first class care every time I
visited them in many countries. I have American friends living in France
who won't come home because they need medical care they cannot get at home.
They've lived there for years now and are now home in France.

Canadians have special insurance they buy to protect themselves from the
AMA ripoffs before they vacation here. Older Canadians won't come without
it!

France actually PAYS doctors to make and KEEP people WELL....unlike the USA
where WELL people aren't the path to becoming waterfront millionaire
doctors. SICK people buy yachts, cars, waterfront property, expensive
vacations, fine clothes, jewelry, medical school for the kids to propagate
the next generation of medical millionaires. Is that a "duhh"?

On 2008-09-18, Larry <noone@home.com> wrote:

> France actually PAYS doctors to make and KEEP people WELL...

....which makes sense, because the cost of keeping people healthy is much
less than the cost of fixing them after they become sick.

> the next generation of medical millionaires. Is that a "duhh"?

There are plenty of good doctors who are more interested in caring for
patients than getting rich quick, but there are others who only care about
getting rich. Ask me about my toddler's birth four years ago... but be
prepared for a long rant.



--
Steve Sobol / Victorville, CA, USA
It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
> "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote in news:JPadne0--
> e8p0k_VnZ2dnUVZ_jCdnZ2d@comcast.com:
>
>> Ian F. wrote:
>>> "Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
>>> news:Xns9B1CD43B414D7noonehomecom@208.49.80.253...
>>>
>>>> If you are in Europe, there are socialist
>>>> doctors all over the place
>>> What difference does it make what their politics are?
>>>
>>> Ian
>> I don't think it's their politics being discussed. It's "socialized
>> medicine" i.e. the government pays the doctors, hospitals, etc. It
>> means that everyone gets some sort of health care.
>
> Where in Europe would this be? There is no country in Europe where you
> can walk up to a doctor and be treated for free. I hope the OP reads
> this as she said her company would be dependent on medical care. It
> used to be true(ish) in the UK but they've tightened the rules some
> time ago. In most other European countries this was never the case,
> except maybe in the Eastern block when it was still communist, but not
> now.
<snipped>

I'm the OP and I had never thought that medical care would be free
there, or anywhere else. We have travel medical insurance in the event
we need to seek emergency care in Europe. Hopefully, everything will be
fine.

The medical issue arose due to my explanation as to why I needed to have
a phone on our 7 week trip. If my DH is not feeling well, we will be
able to call his physicians in the US for advice on drug adjustments or
dosage adjustments for his insulin pump. Since the doctors never answer
their own phones, it was important to have a local number.

Thank you for your concern.


--
Janet Wilder
Bad spelling. Bad punctuation
Good Friends. Good Life

"Wolfgang Schwanke" <see@sig.nature> wrote in message
news:6jfsgbF34vqdU1@mid.uni-berlin.de...
> "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88@comcast.net> wrote in news:JPadne0--
> e8p0k_VnZ2dnUVZ_jCdnZ2d@comcast.com:
>
>> Ian F. wrote:
>>> "Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
>>> news:Xns9B1CD43B414D7noonehomecom@208.49.80.253...
>>>
>>>> If you are in Europe, there are socialist
>>>> doctors all over the place
>>>
>>> What difference does it make what their politics are?
>>>
>>> Ian
>>
>> I don't think it's their politics being discussed. It's "socialized
>> medicine" i.e. the government pays the doctors, hospitals, etc. It
>> means that everyone gets some sort of health care.
>
> Where in Europe would this be? There is no country in Europe where you
> can walk up to a doctor and be treated for free. I hope the OP reads
> this as she said her company would be dependent on medical care. It
> used to be true(ish) in the UK but they've tightened the rules some
> time ago.

It's still possible to walk into a hospital "walk-in" centre or a full A&E
and be treated for an emergency, be it illness or injury, with no proof that
you are entitled. They will even give you some drugs from the hospital
pharmacy if you are lucky.

There might be some filtering out of "foreigners" but there are so many
foreigners genuinely entitled that I doubt this is barrier for most
nationalities.

tim

On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:04:45 +0000, Larry wrote in post :
<news:Xns9B1D903C72DC7noonehomecom@208.49.80.253 > :

>> It can mean that you
>> might have to wait two or three years to get non-emergency (elective)
>> surgery. It can also mean that the government decides whether you live
>> or die.
>>
>
> Precisely, where is this true?

It can be like that in the UK.

--
Tim C.
google.groups killfiled to reduce spam
email address munged.

tim..... wrote:
> "SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
> news:ZudAk.410$eb4.313@flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com...
>> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>>
>>> That works, but I don't think it is all that cheap. I believe
>>> GeoSim uses numbers from a Manx or Channel Islands mobile operator,
>>> and that MyGlobalTalk charges 38 cents/minute to forward calls
>>> to those, so the fact that you aren't charged by the mobile
>>> company doesn't help so much. I believe it also costs a $20-something
>>> per year maintenance fee to keep the GeoSIM alive.
>> Yes, 37.9¢ per minute. But it's $1.29 per minute roaming on Verizon, more
>> than 3x as much. Calling mobile phones in Europe is always a bit costly
>> because of the insane way the mobile operators are allowed to bill over
>> there with "caller pays."
>
> In what way is that "insane"
>
> ISTM that called party pays is the insane way, no other item that you buy
> charges this way!

It's insane because it results in much, much higher per-minute prices.

The carriers love it because it hides the true cost of using the mobile
phone when you distribute the costs in this way.

Why should the caller be penalized just because they're calling a mobile
number versus a landline? With the called party pays you can decide
whether or not to answer if you don't want to pay.

Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in
> news:2%QAk.741$be.454@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com:
>
>>>> Yes, 37.9¢ per minute. But it's $1.29 per minute roaming on Verizon,
>>>> more than 3x as much. Calling mobile phones in Europe is always a
>>>> bit costly because of the insane way the mobile operators are
>>>> allowed to bill over there with "caller pays."
>>> In what way is that "insane"
>>>
>>> ISTM that called party pays is the insane way, no other item that you
>>> buy charges this way!
>> It's insane because it results in much, much higher per-minute prices.
>
> How so? The price is paid by one person instead of being distributed
> between two people, but why would this result in a higher total price?

It's not that it has to result in a higher price, it's that in practice
it results in a higher price. You can ask the carriers why they charge
so much more, you'll just have to get them drunk before they admit that
the reason is "because we can get away with it." The average price per
minute in the U.S. is less than half of that in the countries with
caller pays.

Europeans pay more than 2x per minute, but since the cost is widely
distributed the subscriber doesn't notice it. Therefore I'm surprised
that this wasn't adopted in the U.S.! The problem in the U.S. is that
while in most countries you know by the prefix or area code whether or
not you're calling a cell phone, in the U.S. you don't.

Also remember that the only time two people pay in the U.S. is when it's
mobile to mobile on two different carriers. When it's mobile to mobile
on the same carrier there's no extra cost. When it's landline to mobile
only one side pays. When it's off-peak, no one pays. I rarely use up my
measly 300 minutes a month since about 70% of my calls are to people on
the same carrier, or made after 8 p.m. or on weekends.

SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:gYQAk.740$be.100
@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com:

> It's not true at all. It's the standard line put forward by the U.S.
> health care industry to scare people whenever universal health care is
> proposed.
>
>

What they need to do is watch Michael Moore's documentary on the
subject.....

The part where he took abandoned 9/11 volunteers to Cuba to try to get
them into Guantanamo Bay's terrorist hospital is precious. The results
when they asked the Cubans for help was a stroke of genius....using
Cuba's need for propaganda fodder to get help for these people. Great
movie to watch.

Why did we abandon the people whos lives we ruined cleaning up the
evidence so noone can find it on 9/11?

================================================== ==============

Why does a 0.6ml plastic syringe of Neulasta cost $3,331.13 - save 13%
($518.17) at discount on drugstore.com:
http://www.drugstore.com/pharmacy/pr...dc=55513019001
&trx=1Z5006

1 Gallon (US) = 3785.411 784 mL (millilitres)
divide that by .6 and you get 6,309 syringes x $3,331.13
and you get $US 21,016,164 per gallon.

Why must cancer patients pay $21,016,164 per gallon to "help prevent",
but not prevent, "infections"?

Name one other liquid, not made by the pharma industry, that's any where
near $21,016,164 per gallon. Why aren't we prosecuting the REAL drug
dealers? Why is Usury and price gouging ok for medical stuff?

http://www.neulasta.com/
Amgen....a perfect place to start the executions.

The most wonderful medical miracles on the planet are useless when only
Rupert Murdock and Billy Gates can afford to use them....and still have
some semblance of life and funds to survive, AFTER the operation.

Shame on us, Corporate America. Shame on us.
They'd better hurry up with the dumbing down. The Sheeple might get fed
up with the medical billionaires and put them in the lawyer line at the
gallows.

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:2%QAk.741$be.454@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...
> tim..... wrote:
>> "SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
>> news:ZudAk.410$eb4.313@flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com...
>>> Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>>>
>>>> That works, but I don't think it is all that cheap. I believe
>>>> GeoSim uses numbers from a Manx or Channel Islands mobile operator,
>>>> and that MyGlobalTalk charges 38 cents/minute to forward calls
>>>> to those, so the fact that you aren't charged by the mobile
>>>> company doesn't help so much. I believe it also costs a $20-something
>>>> per year maintenance fee to keep the GeoSIM alive.
>>> Yes, 37.9¢ per minute. But it's $1.29 per minute roaming on Verizon,
>>> more than 3x as much. Calling mobile phones in Europe is always a bit
>>> costly because of the insane way the mobile operators are allowed to
>>> bill over there with "caller pays."
>>
>> In what way is that "insane"
>>
>> ISTM that called party pays is the insane way, no other item that you buy
>> charges this way!
>
> It's insane because it results in much, much higher per-minute prices.
>
> The carriers love it because it hides the true cost of using the mobile
> phone when you distribute the costs in this way.

Hence the reason why we have a regulator instructing them in the maximum fee
they may charge. It's not ideal, but I still think it's better

>
> Why should the caller be penalized just because they're calling a mobile
> number versus a landline? With the called party pays you can decide
> whether or not to answer if you don't want to pay.

The caller can decide not to pay by deciding not to call the number. He
already does this with 900 and the many other type of "premium" numbers.

"Wolfgang Schwanke" <see@sig.nature> wrote in message
news:6jk4blF3mj88U1@mid.uni-berlin.de...
> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in
> news:2%QAk.741$be.454@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com:
>
>>>> Yes, 37.9¢ per minute. But it's $1.29 per minute roaming on Verizon,
>>>> more than 3x as much. Calling mobile phones in Europe is always a
>>>> bit costly because of the insane way the mobile operators are
>>>> allowed to bill over there with "caller pays."
>>>
>>> In what way is that "insane"
>>>
>>> ISTM that called party pays is the insane way, no other item that you
>>> buy charges this way!
>>
>> It's insane because it results in much, much higher per-minute prices.
>
> How so? The price is paid by one person instead of being distributed
> between two people, but why would this result in a higher total price?

The reason it is more expensive is because there are no competitive forces
driving the price down.

If the called party pays, he will take this cost into account when he
selects his network. But with calling party pays, when you have to call
someone you cannot choose which set of network charges to use, the called
party has already selected these for you (usually on a "couldn't care less
basis")

>> The carriers love it because it hides the true cost of using the
>> mobile phone when you distribute the costs in this way.
>
> The true operational costs of mobile networks are much lower than
> landline. Instead of expensively building and maintaining a wire grid,
> all the carrier company needs to do is vaguely point an aerial or two
> at a neighbourhood, and they can start selling contracts and handsets
> there. Landline operators have much higher investments _and_
> operating/maintenance costs.

I think you seriously misunderstand the cost of wireless bandwidth

> It's true that carriers (at this time) charge more for mobile calls.
> But this is not because they have higher costs, but because they can
> get away with it, mostly for historical reasons.

And they do have higher costs. The reason for this is that they are
bandwidth limited. It might be true that they can put in a network for the
same (or less) cost as a fixed network. But a fixed network can encourage
you to make more calls without affecting anybody else. A wireless network
can't do this, if you make more calls someone else has to make less (though
I agree that at the current time with the roll-out of 3G we haven't reached
saturation.

Oh and don't forget the 20 billion pound license that they had to buy. This
works out at about 100 pound pa per customer, before any other costs. How
much do you pay for you mobile phone use each year?

> This is because most customers are used to higher mobile rates from 15
> or 20 years ago and don't question this.

I am sure that they do.

> In those days mobiles were
> considered a luxury,

They still are. No-one really needs one.

> the capacities of the networks were still limited,
> and the carriers had to compensate the costs of building up the new
> systems they had just invested in. But none of this is true now.

Really

Do you know how much profit the mobile companys make.

It's bugger all I still don't think that the third and fourth networks in
the UK have turned in a penny profit in their entire lifetime (It's hard to
say now as they are no longer independent). The 5th network is still miles
away from even breaking even.

tim

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:ga8Bk.1061$YU2.587@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com...
> Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
>> SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in
>> news:2%QAk.741$be.454@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com:
>>>>> Yes, 37.9¢ per minute. But it's $1.29 per minute roaming on Verizon,
>>>>> more than 3x as much. Calling mobile phones in Europe is always a
>>>>> bit costly because of the insane way the mobile operators are
>>>>> allowed to bill over there with "caller pays."
>>>> In what way is that "insane"
>>>>
>>>> ISTM that called party pays is the insane way, no other item that you
>>>> buy charges this way!
>>> It's insane because it results in much, much higher per-minute prices.
>>
>> How so? The price is paid by one person instead of being distributed
>> between two people, but why would this result in a higher total price?
>
> It's not that it has to result in a higher price, it's that in practice it
> results in a higher price. You can ask the carriers why they charge so
> much more, you'll just have to get them drunk before they admit that the
> reason is "because we can get away with it." The average price per minute
> in the U.S. is less than half of that in the countries with caller pays.

A random look for a carrier (they are hard to find because they recognise
that I am not accessing them from the USA and bounce me to their
international site) shows that a low user PAYG pays 25c per minute. This is
more than I pay for my off peak calls (and I do only make off peak calls) at
10 pence per minute. I could have the option of 10 per minute if I pay a
service charge of a dollar a day, but at my usage this would be a silly
tariff to use.

If you want to make blanket statements about the difference in costs you
have to state the amount that you think you can buy "minutes" for and the
usage that gets you that price. There are UK tariffs that will get you
calls at 2ppm if you buy a 1000 minute pm bundle.

> Europeans pay more than 2x per minute, but since the cost is widely
> distributed the subscriber doesn't notice it. Therefore I'm surprised
> that this wasn't adopted in the U.S.! The problem in the U.S. is that
> while in most countries you know by the prefix or area code whether or not
> you're calling a cell phone, in the U.S. you don't.
>
> Also remember that the only time two people pay in the U.S. is when it's
> mobile to mobile on two different carriers. When it's mobile to mobile on
> the same carrier there's no extra cost. When it's landline to mobile only
> one side pays.

How does that work?

Which is the party that doesn't pay?

> When it's off-peak, no one pays.

How does the land-line caller get free off peak calls?

tim

tim..... wrote:

> A random look for a carrier (they are hard to find because they recognise
> that I am not accessing them from the USA and bounce me to their
> international site) shows that a low user PAYG pays 25c per minute.

In reality, prepaid on T-Mobile costs as little as 8¢ per minute, and a
prepaid minute on Verizon's network, using MVNO PagePlus, cost as little
as 5.4¢ per minute (12¢ at the top end). 7-11's GSM service on the AT&T
network costs a flat 15¢ per minute, regardless of the the value of the
refill card (other prepaid carriers give significant discounts for their
higher value cards).

It's certainly possible to pay 25¢ per minute, or even more, but it
isn't necessary to do so. There are a lot of MVNOs with poor rates
and/or high minimums, such as Tracfone, Virgin Mobile, Jitterbug, and
Verizon InPulse.

You can look at "http://prepaiduswireless.com/" to get an idea of how
little prepaid costs.

Anyway, I recall reading an article about caller pays versus caller pays
for wireless, and the conclusion was that Europeans pay roughly twice as
much per minute than in the U.S.. The exception is for calls from one
wireless phone to another during peak hours, when the phones are on
different networks, in which case the average cost was about equal
because both sides were paying.

"SMS" <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:kteBk.1167$c45.157@nlpi065.nbdc.sbc.com...
> tim..... wrote:
>
>> A random look for a carrier (they are hard to find because they recognise
>> that I am not accessing them from the USA and bounce me to their
>> international site) shows that a low user PAYG pays 25c per minute.
>
> In reality, prepaid on T-Mobile costs as little as 8¢ per minute, and a
> prepaid minute on Verizon's network, using MVNO PagePlus, cost as little
> as 5.4¢ per minute (12¢ at the top end). 7-11's GSM service on the AT&T
> network costs a flat 15¢ per minute, regardless of the the value of the
> refill card (other prepaid carriers give significant discounts for their
> higher value cards).

No no no no no, "costs as little as" is meaninglesless, it depened upon you
buying 1000s of minutes per month. I can do that in the UK and the number
is "2 pence" which is much less than your 8 cents.

How much does it costs someone who wants to make 100 minutes of calls per
month to buy the first minute?,

> It's certainly possible to pay 25¢ per minute, or even more, but it isn't
> necessary to do so. There are a lot of MVNOs with poor rates and/or high
> minimums, such as Tracfone, Virgin Mobile, Jitterbug, and Verizon InPulse.

Lower call costs usually come from suppliers who don't subsidize the phone,
we have them in the UK as well. How much do phones cost for these plans?

>
> You can look at "http://prepaiduswireless.com/" to get an idea of how
> little prepaid costs.

I don't want to know how "little" it costs. I want to compare "like with
like"!

As an example, on that page T-Mobile is stated as costing 8.4c pm. If you
click on the website the price for a NORMAL low user is 10 dollars for 30
minutes or 33 cents per minute. To get to 10c per minute you have to buy
1000 minutes, most phone users don't use anything like this quantity of
minutes (those that do will be on a business tariff that has been
individually negotiated - if their company has any sense).

tim