Advice for calling US Mobile Phone?

Miguel Cruz wrote:
>
> What does this mean? In both the US and Europe either party is free
> to hang up the phone when they are tired of the conversation. What is
> the relevance of who placed the call?

It is when one considers the etiquette. In general it is the caller who
has something to say and it is polite to listen what he has to say. Of
course there is no law that says one cannot just hang up and in some
cases one actually might have better things to do.

Osmo

---

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"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and prestwich tesco"
<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:1gxcc0g.dryer1xlgqdgN%[email protected]...
> > which show codes (423) 76/77/78/79 are subject to this surcharge (so that
> > would be cheaper than I quoted, 41-43ppm).
> >
> > > but oddly, the only call
> > > I made from the landline was charged 16ppm last weekend. I'll try a
> > > weekday call and see what the per minute charge is. I'd read elsewhere
> > > that 18ppm was the BT charge, so maybe it's the same, at the moment.
> >
> > I guess if the number of your SIM doesn't start as above, then you'll pay
> > the landline rate, although this would seem odd, I thought the numbers in
> > that list included all mobiles (except for countries like US and Canada
> > where the receiver pays).
>
> The number is 423 66 etc.- so that might explain it.

Interesting. You could try the telediscount number for Liechenstein landlands,
this would be 5ppm. Or the mobile one is 10ppm.

--
Andy

Miguel Cruz wrote:

>
> Doesn't matter - he's ahead of you way before 3750 minutes.
>
> At "6.9-8.9" (which I'll just call 7.9), he's paying less than you
> after as little as than 10 minutes of calling per day. With each
> additional minute of calling he pays less and less than you do.

With 300 minutes a month it is better get here a plan that gives 500
minutes at 17.80 a month. Also do no forget received calls. 10 minutes a
day is pretty much. Average use here has been about 150 minutes a month
though it has been increasing somewhat recently as prices dropped.

Osmo

"Osmo R" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Joseph wrote:
>
>> Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking. Did you not see "the
>> receiver pays and I will have a conversation as long as both parties
>> are willing." That implies that the party who is paying for the call
>> is not as you say "babbling" but is having a conversation for as long
>> as is mutually agreed by both parties. You really do need to pay
>> attention!
>
> The other party might be too polite to interrupt you.
>
> Osmo

If something was costing me money and I didn't want to pay it, politeness
wouldn't enter into it..!!

Ivor

"John R. Levine" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> >> If the US systems are so much better, why is it then that a
> >> significantly larger portion of the world is now using GSM rather
> >> than TDMA? It's not just UK and Europe.
>
> Aw, c'mon. GSM has nothing to do with who pays for the call.

And of course GSM _is_ TDMA. The only reason that CDMA took hold in the U.S.
is a) because CDMA is much more spectrally efficient, (U.S. has less
spectrum available for mobile voice and data), and b) you can cover an
equivalent area with far less cells, which is important in less densely
populated areas.

In message <[email protected]> S Viemeister
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Miguel Cruz wrote:
>>
>> Osmo R <[email protected]> wrote:
>> > If the U.S. system is so much better why do so few people have mobiles
>> > in the U.S. and why do you still use pagers (here pagers have been
>> > discontinued years ago)
>>
>> I do not know anyone in the US who has a pager or does not have a mobile
>> phone. I think you are going on old information.
>>
>I know one or two people in the US who still have pagers - but they also
>use mobiles.

I carry both. My pager can do things that no phone on the market today
can even dream of doing:

1) Standby time measured in weeks or months.
2) Run from a battery that I can pick up at any corner store for $2.
3) Receive a signal virtually anywhere. That includes elevators,
underground (basements, subbasements, etc), parkades, train tunnels,
etc.
4) Hardware cost under $50 without any contract/commitment/etc
(Important because if I break it, lose it, whatever else, I don't care
anywhere near as much as if I lose me $300 cell phone)

And not only that, my pager is smaller then any cell phone on the
market.

--
No Sprinkles. For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you.
-- Stewie

>> In the US I was paying about US$25/month (19 euro) for unlimited
>> calls to local landlines and mobiles. As you can imagine, calling
>> patterns in that environment are quite different - people stay on the
>> phone for hours.
>
>Well one can hope the other party does not have a mobile.

Depends when. A lot of US plans now offer either unlimited night and
weekend minutes or a large enough number that it might as well be
unlimited, e.g., I get 3500/mo. This works fine for me, since during
the day I tend to be in the office with my landline at hand, and
nights and weekends I'm more likely to be out.

>Well in some sense it is true. If all your friends get mobile phones
>you need to get one too.

Finland seems to be kind of a special case, just about the only place
I know where there are more mobiles than landlines. It sounds like
the landline service wasn't so grat, and the telco decided (not
altogether unreasonably) to make mobiles irresistable rather than
investing in landlines.

In the US, pretty much everyone had a phone by 1960. Other countries
took a lot longer to catch up, and if they waited long enough, mobiles
could be a good alternative. I gather that everyone in Hungary has a
mobile, too, because it was faster to build a new mobile network after
the communists left than to fix the decrepit fixed network.

R's,
John

Osmo R <[email protected]> wrote:
> Miguel Cruz wrote:
>> Doesn't matter - he's ahead of you way before 3750 minutes.
>>
>> At "6.9-8.9" (which I'll just call 7.9), he's paying less than you
>> after as little as than 10 minutes of calling per day. With each
>> additional minute of calling he pays less and less than you do.
>
> With 300 minutes a month it is better get here a plan that gives 500
> minutes at 17.80 a month. Also do no forget received calls. 10 minutes a
> day is pretty much. Average use here has been about 150 minutes a month
> though it has been increasing somewhat recently as prices dropped.

Yet you continue to make arguments based on the reasoning that people in
Finland don't talk on the phone very much, as if there's any reason for this
other than the fact that phone calls there are so expensive.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 36 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Queens Day in Amsterdam; the Grand Canyon; Amman, Jordan

Osmo R <[email protected]> wrote:
> Miguel Cruz wrote:
>> In the US I was paying about US$25/month (19 euro) for unlimited
>> calls to local landlines and mobiles. As you can imagine, calling
>> patterns in that environment are quite different - people stay on the
>> phone for hours.
>
> Well one can hope the other party does not have a mobile.

Normally they have both, and everyone knows which is which. However, even if
they only have a mobile, the costs to use it are far lower than in Europe
(due to the called-party-pays system) so they feel freer to talk longer.

>> I think we can assume from this that people would prefer to spend
>> more time on the phone and find more value in doing so, but in the
>> high-cost European telecoms market they cannot afford to.
>
> I doubt that. If they wanted to stay much longer on phone they'd get
> land lines.

Unlimited local service is a very recent phenomenon in the few places in
Europe where it exists, so there hasn't really been an alternative. Just bad
vs worse.

> Yes, that's an example of what lack of competition causes. Probably
> they want to keep on with the existing customers by giving a message
> that there is no return.
>
> In most cases landline just just a hassle. There is additional phone
> number. One needs to have an answering machine or service for it, the
> phones have poor phone directories etc. It is much simpler just to have
> one phone even though it might in some cases cost more.

I don't see how a bad landline system is justification for a bad mobile
system, which seems to be your fundamental argument. Sure, that particular
bad mobile system may have some advantages over that bad landline system but
that doesn't mean it's better than a good mobile system.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 36 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Queens Day in Amsterdam; the Grand Canyon; Amman, Jordan

John R. Levine <[email protected]> wrote:
> In the US, pretty much everyone had a phone by 1960. Other countries
> took a lot longer to catch up, and if they waited long enough, mobiles
> could be a good alternative. I gather that everyone in Hungary has a
> mobile, too, because it was faster to build a new mobile network after
> the communists left than to fix the decrepit fixed network.

This is the case in any number of underdeveloped nations. Mobile systems, as
compared to landline systems, are cheap in terms of capital and expensive in
terms of ongoing costs. So where there is not much money for long-term
investment, or faith in long-term stability, it is more likely that
investors will primarily fund development of mobile systems in order to
realize short-term profits even though the overall costs to the country are
greater.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 36 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Queens Day in Amsterdam; the Grand Canyon; Amman, Jordan

This also is not going to change. I will not place a call to a
wireless phone if I will get charged extra. If they won't give me a
land line number, then they won't hear from me.
Here the caller only pays for the land line call he makes (basically he
is making a land line call to a wireless service provider, and the
provider is making a wireless call to the recipient,) and the wireless
recipient pays for the wireless service he has signed up for.

The only way I know that I am calling a wireless phone is if it is to
one of my friends or relatives. The cost to others of my call to them
is the same as any other call to them, and dependent on which provider
and plan they have chosen, and they are free to tell me not to call or
hang up if they think the call is going too long, or just not answer
when they see my caller id.

They may just have to get the extended battery or talk while plugged in
to the charger.

I have Earthlink/Covad, but also have to keep my sbc land line for it
to work. My phone bill is only $16 and although my Wife an I have
wireless phones we still use the land line some and the kids use it
more. For example, my Wife will not give her wireless number to her work.

It is very easy and fast for either the recipient or the caller to hang
up anytime they want. If someone is timid or polite, then that is their
own problem.