Advice for calling US Mobile Phone?

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> For emergency use, forcing the caller to pay to call a mobile phone is a
> very bad idea. Already we are seeing that some toll free numbers in the U.S.
> won't accept calls from pay phones, because they get charged an extra fee by
> the pay phone operator. As it is now, businesses, schools, etc., will
> usually let someone use the phone to make an emergency call, but since these
> calls are often to mobile phones, this generosity would stop if the caller
> had to pay for the call if it were to a mobile.

I've not heard of any emergency situation where someone has been told
they can call a landline but not a mobile number.

I can quite see how it might be an issue if the "emergency" were that
a school pupil had forgotten his homework, but then that's not the
kind of emergency I'm concerned about being contacted for. In a case
where someone had been injured or was ill, the cost difference
between calling a mobile number and a landline is not large enough
that it's going to stop someone from allowing a call to be made.

--
Hedgehog

---

› See More: Advice for calling US Mobile Phone?

"Rick Merrill" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:b5mdnWVCYtir0w7fRVn-

> Well then, as long as any phone works anywhere in GB, there's no
> problem, is there?

All the networks have holes in them where there is
minimal or no coverage. If you don't know where you're
going to be, you can't really predict which of the
networks (if any) will have no/low coverage.

When the USAns refer to "roaming", does this mean that
they can use somebody else's network, transparently, if
that is the only one available ? How does the handset
select amongst many networks, if the difference between
them is slight (but all poor) ?

Richard [in PE12]

"Joseph" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Wed, 25 May 2005 01:13:02 +0100, "Andy Pandy"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >If I call a UK Vodafone number when the user is roaming in Germany, I'm
already
> >paying a large termination fee to Vodafone. It should cost them a trivial
amount
> >to send the call to Vodafone Germany who will terminate the call which I've
> >already paid for.
>
> But assuming Vodafone Germany has caller pays the termination must be
> paid to the Voda network in Germany. Just because you've paid the
> termination charge once why do you think you'd be let off the hook for
> termination charges in another country?

Because Vodafone UK is not terminating my call on a mobile, it is routing it to
Germany, which as Telediscount etc demonstrate can be done for a trivial cost.
Vodafone Germany will terminate my call on a mobile - for which I've already
paid. Why should the mobile user then have to pay an additional sky high
termination fee?

> Right now any time I call a
> country with caller pays mobile I pay a premium which is up to five
> times the rate for regular fixed wireline phones.

Of course, that premium is for mobile termination.

But if I call a UK mobile roaming in Germany, I've *already* paid the mobile
termination premium. I've not paid for international routing, but the cost of
this to the network is surely trivial.

--
Andy

"Stuart Friedman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I'm paying US$90 a month for 2,500 prime time minutes. That includes
> incoming and outgoing calls. Calls made before 7am or after 7pm are free,
> as are calls to other subscribers on the ATT/Cingular network.
>
> In comparing the offerings, consider the following high end plan:
>
http://onlinestorez.cingular.com/cel...-plans/plan-de
tails.jsp?skuid=csku00024
>
> For $99 a month, you receive 2000 minutes, free nights, weekends,and mobile
> to mobile calls. Not counting, the nights and weekends, you are paying
> about just over three cents a minute. If you factor in the free calls, your
> per minute cost drops to about two cents a minute for the average user. Not
> bad for $54 quid.

For a high user I'm sure it's a good deal. But it depends on what you *actually*
use, or rather actually *need* to use, not how many minutes are included.

I know people here in the UK paying £30+ for mobile contracts with masses of
inclusive minutes which they either never use - or use up making calls which
they could have used their landline for at trivial cost. When you divide their
contract cost by the number of minutes they actually needed to use their mobile
for (ie not including calls made from home/work) the cost per minute is usually
massive.

--
Andy

Thus spaketh GlintingHedgehog:
> In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]lid
> says...
>> I have a contract anyway, the money isn't wasted for me. So why
>> can't I choose to use my inclusive minutes for receiving calls..?
>
> Would it be possible for you to forward your landline number to your
> mobile? (I don't know, I'm just wondering if it's something that's
> possible and might work for your situation.)

Yes, this is possible.

"Miguel Cruz" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Stuart Friedman <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The problem in my mind with caller pays is that it switches around the
> > economic model. The caller is in a very difficult position to negotiate
> > for a cheap termination rate with the mobile provider in exchange for
> > guaranteeing the use of a largish block of minutes, e.g. I cannot call
> > Voda and say that I plan on spending a thousand minutes a month calling
> > Voda customers, what is the best rate you'll give me.
> >
> > As a result, the cost of terminating calls to mobiles is significantly
> > higher than it should be. If the price of calling a mobile was only a few
> > cents higher than calling a landline, caller pays would be great.
>
> You make an excellent point here. Overall, the total amount charged to all
> people involved in a call (caller and receiver) is generally much higher in
> Europe, and the fact that the people paying have almost no leverage in
> Europe is surely a major contributor to this situation.

Absolutely. I'm generally in favour of a caller pays system on the grounds that
the caller has made the decision to make the call, and there is a choice about
who pays (eg the called party can call back the caller to switch around who
pays). Also I've sometimes needed to contact people on their mobile to ask
advice etc, purely for my benefit, and felt guilty enough disturbing them when
their out and about - I'd feel even worse if it was costing them.

But the mobile operators simply take the p with termination charges, and most
mobile users never give this a second thought. There are big price differences
between termination charges for different operators (eg calling a non-ported "3"
mobile in the evening will cost you over double calling a Vodafone) but is this
ever a decision making selling point?

> The contorted arguments in defense of this state of affairs remind me of a
> thread in rec.travel.europe a few years ago where a bunch of Europeans
> yelled themselves hoarse in defense of paying per minute for local calls. As
> far as I could tell, the fundamental argument was, "okay, fine, we give
> buckets more money to the phone company than they do for the same service,
> but we're used to it and they are stupid Americans, so our system is
> better."

Sounds about right for rec.travel.europe.

> Now someone figure out how Singapore manages to have caller-pays phones but
> still keeps termination charges about the same as those for landlines.

A regulator with teeth?

--
Andy

On Wed, 25 May 2005 09:58:09 +0100, "Jet Morgan"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>When the USAns refer to "roaming", does this mean that
>they can use somebody else's network, transparently, if
>that is the only one available ?

it can mean using exactly the same network in the next
county/city/state (delete where not applicable). It can also mean
roaming onto analogue when falling off the digital map.

have a look/laugh at http://www.atmc.net/wireless/roaming.asp for
example.

Phil
--
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Come on down !

On Wed, 25 May 2005 10:15:34 +0100, "Andy Pandy"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>When you divide their
>contract cost by the number of minutes they actually needed to use their mobile
>for (ie not including calls made from home/work) the cost per minute is usually
>massive.

for which reason I moved to Vodafone's "no inclusive minute" plan. On
the current offer this is £14/month cheaper than the 200 minute plan
so the breakeven is at around 78 minutes of flat-rate calls to any
network.

Phil
--
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Come on down !

"Phil Thompson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> >When you divide their
> >contract cost by the number of minutes they actually needed to use their
mobile
> >for (ie not including calls made from home/work) the cost per minute is
usually
> >massive.
>
> for which reason I moved to Vodafone's "no inclusive minute" plan. On
> the current offer this is £14/month cheaper than the 200 minute plan
> so the breakeven is at around 78 minutes of flat-rate calls to any
> network.

Yup. My company mobile sounds similar, it's a good tariff, the company gets
charged something like £4 a month line rental, and calls are between 3-5p per
minute to landlines and Vodafones, and about 15-20ppm to other networks. Min
charge 1p. I made 30 personal calls last month and it came to less than £1.

--
Andy

On most plans, you don't pay for voicemail deposits.

Stu
"GlintingHedgehog" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> Of course they do. They can choose not to answer the call. Caller ID is
>> standard, and the phone displays who is calling if the name is in your
>> phone's phonebook.
>
> If you choose not to answer, it usually goes to voicemail, and you
> pay for that anyway. And if the name's not in your phonebook, you
> either take the call or take the chance of missing a call you want to
> get - which is kind of a major point of having a mobile phone for me
> in the first place.
>
> --
> Hedgehog

For casual users, the UK system certainly makes the buy in cheaper. For
large volume users, I think the US system is cheaper.

Mobile statistics aren't completely fair, however, an extra Virgin SIM
sitting in a dresser qualifies as a UK mobile for statistic purposes.

Stu

"GlintingHedgehog" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected]
says...
> This idea is only good if you are happy to waste £25+ a month on a
> contract
> phone, that you don't really need, when you can spend a few pennies a
> month on
> a PAYG phone, that doesn't cost you any thing to receive calls.

Does anyone have stats for what proportion of the population have
mobile phones in the UK compared to North America?

It seemed to me that last time I lived in the latter (until about 1.5
years ago), more people (proportionally) had mobiles here in the UK.
I'm sure that the possibility of being contact-able, without having
to pay for a contract, is the major reason for that. Certainly I
wouldn't have had a mobile phone when I first did if I'd had to sign
up to a contract. I used a PAYG for about four years before getting a
contract, and if I couldn't get a "free" contract (via cashback deal)
I would go back to PAYG now. For me - and I'm sure I'm not alone in
this - being available for people to contact is more important than
being able to make calls when I'm out. It's rare that I need to make
a call that can't wait a couple of hours until I'm next to a
landline, but I find it reassuring that I can be contacted in an
emergency at any time (I have elderly family members and four
children).

--
Hedgehog

In message of Wed, 25 May 2005, Stuart Friedman writes
>On most plans, you don't pay for voicemail deposits.
>
>Stu
>"GlintingHedgehog" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> In article <[email protected]>,
>> [email protected] says...
>>> Of course they do. They can choose not to answer the call. Caller ID is
>>> standard, and the phone displays who is calling if the name is in your
>>> phone's phonebook.
>>
>> If you choose not to answer, it usually goes to voicemail, and you
>> pay for that anyway. And if the name's not in your phonebook, you
>> either take the call or take the chance of missing a call you want to
>> get - which is kind of a major point of having a mobile phone for me
>> in the first place.
>>
>> --
>> Hedgehog
>
>

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Stuart Friedman wrote:
>
> On most plans, you don't pay for voicemail deposits.
>
On some, you don't pay to retrieve them, either.

In response to Andy's comments about people buying more minutes than they
need, my response is: I probably buy a little more than I need because you
get hosed when you go over, but I haven't hesitated to down side my minutes
when my consumption went down. I make numerous business calls from the road
and my mobile number is effectively a second business line for me.

"Stuart Friedman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In response to Andy's comments about people buying more minutes than they
> need, my response is: I probably buy a little more than I need because you
> get hosed when you go over,

Exactly - I've seen UK tariffs where excess minutes are charged at higher rates
than even PAYG! It's an obvious ploy to get people to sign up for tariffs with
large amounts of inclusive minutes so they never need excess minutes.

The reality is that for many people, their mobile usage varies greatly from
month to month, and so having a tariff which gives them a fixed number of
minutes per month, which can't be carried over, will mean either wasting bucket
loads of minutes or paying silly charges for excess minutes.

> but I haven't hesitated to down side my minutes
> when my consumption went down. I make numerous business calls from the road
> and my mobile number is effectively a second business line for me.

That's fine if you can predict in advance how much you're going to be using your
mobile. If you can't, you may be better off with a tariff without inclusive
minutes instead of buying up front.

--
Andy