TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: America the Worst For Cell Rates and Plans

Re: America the Worst For Cell Rates and Plans

Steve Sobol (sjsobol@JustThe.net)
Sun, 30 Jan 2005 19:17:23 -0800

earle robinson wrote:

> Please mask my email address.

> Each system has its pluses and minuses. In Europe the caller pays
> means that everyone gives out their cell number because it costs them
> nothing to receive calls. Market penetration is over 75% in most
> countries, and 100% in major areas like Paris. The market penetration
> is much lower in the states. If the European system were inferior, why
> wouldn't it be less popular? If the American system is so wonderful
> why are there far fewer cell phones than here in Europe? Why is the
> European market so much larger?

You're missing the fact that the USA chose not to standardize on one
system, and the fact that landlines here have always been MUCH less
expensive then in Europe.

> If callee pays were the norm for landline phones Bell Telephone would
> never have reached the 100% market penetration it did.

What on earth are you talking about -- The callee DOES pay for
landline calls here. If you have a residential line, you normally get
flat-rate calling but businesses get metered rates. That's metered per
call in many places, but here it's per minute. You can get metered
rates for residential lines too -- if you don't make a ton of calls --
and pay a lower monthly rate.

That's for local calls. Everyone pays per-minute for long-distance
calls, although some companies have now started offering flat-rate
long-distance too.

> phone books either. The European system employs a distinct area code
> for cell phones so there is no confusion. Not so in the states. If I
> call a 305 or a 917 area code I don't know if it is a cell phone or a
> landline one.

Ironically, 917 used to be mobile/pager numbers only. I don't recall
why that was changed.

But I can tell you that if we were to adopt the system you speak of,
we'd probably have run out of area codes long ago and had to add a
digit to new phone numbers like the UK did.

> Alas, there is the problem of the exorbitant charge levied on landline
> calls to cell phones, which is a scandal.

Not in the US there isn't. You pay the same rate to either.

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Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / sjsobol@JustThe.net / PGP: 0xE3AE35ED

"In case anyone was wondering, that big glowing globe above the Victor
Valley is the sun." -Victorville _Daily Press_ on the unusually large
amount of rain the Southland has gotten this winter (January 12th, 2005)

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