Anthony919

what!!! Bas****ds!!!

This may still be too much money for me, for the odd call here and there, but perhaps its the only option.

Anthony919

I don't know what its like where you live, but I am in an area where street payphones are not easy to find and of course, the likelihood of having one near you when the real need arises (and not when I'm in the store and feel the need to call my wife about a grocery item) is going to be slim to zero.

They are in gas stations (this expression still makes me laugh) where I am and in odd places but they aren't all over the place. Car breakdown is one reason to have one (911 folk won't take kindly to you ringing them if your car has broken down) and when your loved one doesn't arrive or meet you when you expect them to is another.

We all managed without mobiles when we were kids but the way the world has become and is at this time, makes a personal phone more than 10% necessary, in my view.

Ray

Amazing how billions of people managed in the past ...

RoadWarriorFromLP

What you apparently fail to understand that in the UK (and in many other places), the call made to a mobile phone may be free to the recipient, but the caller pays a substantial premium to call that number.

In the US, the party calling to the mobile pays no premium at all to call a mobile. From the caller's standpoint, phoning to a mobile or land line makes no difference at all.

In both cases, somebody is paying a premium when a mobile phone is involved. The difference is in who is paying the wireless markup.

It seems as if recently that the UK providers have started reducing their contract prices. But not long ago, it was substantially cheaper to have a phone in the US than it was in the UK, presuming that you actually used the phone to speak to people.

Also remember that in the US, contracts typically include free nights and weekends. So if you like to gab away for non-business purposes on weekends, you still end up saving money here.

Anthony919

I do not fail to understand what you claim.

That is the established common way everything is done in the world and has been for ages - in this case, the person desiring to make a call is the one who pays for it, like landlines and like everything else in the universe.

Why should I share in the caller's costs? I didn't ask them to call me?

I would be happy to share the cost if its my wife, a relative, a friend, but not people in business or telemarketers or wrong numbers, etc., etc. When I did have a cell phone soon after arriving in the USA, I received several wrong number calls, about a dozen recorded message phone calls from a sodding school for all its pupil's parents (which I was not one of), plus the police calling me looking for donations. Why should I PAY towards all of that, sir?

RoadWarriorFromLP

Well, for one, not everyone does this as you claim. For another, different nations are entitled to evolve different practices. In the US, you pay for airtime. (If you receive wrong numbers, etc., you can get the cost of those calls refunded.) It's not a crime, it's just different.

In any case, if you stopped whinging for half a second, you might pay attention to what matters most, which is the actual expense of having and using a phone. When I've been the UK, I've been both stung by the cost of calling to mobiles (I remember making a short call from a phone cabin, only to find that my shiny new £5 phone card was drained to zero in a matter of minutes). I've also been bruised and battered by the cost of using my phone as it was intended, i.e. as a device used to call other people.

The US system was never nationally organized, and it is the byproduct of evolution of smaller companies that began serving local markets. Consequently, there is no US mobile-only area code, and no differentiation from the caller's standpoint as to what number s/he is calling.

In the US, land line users have long been accustomed to having free local calls as part of their service. Had it been necessary for callers to pay an enormous premium to call somebody's cellular phone, the cell phone would have been killed off before it had a chance to start because callers would have avoided dialing those numbers. The current billing system encouraged the widespread adoption of these phones.

That is quite different from the situation in Europe and much of the world, where callers were quite accustomed to paying for each and every call, so the phone providers were able to gouge them with a premium mobile price without any resistance. Americans would have never accepted such a system.

Tracym

So if you don't want to share in the caller's costs, and you didn't ask them to call you - don't answer the call!

You have caller Id - don't pick it up. What's the problem?

Longy

I didn't think telemarketers were allowed to call cell phones in the US?

callowman

the big scandel is not only the charges and hidden taxes but the way the companies all "lock" thier phones so you have to buy a new phone if you change companies.

Hiro11

That's the nub of the problem with US cellphones, I completely agree. The US market needs to evolve towards a single standard (GSM, probably) and the regulations need to be fixed to disaggregate the purchase of hardware with the purchase of service. It seems to me the ideal state would be:

1. Pick a phone you want, any phone. You'll have to pay more for the phone up front, but at least it will be transparent what you're paying for (rather than baked into a contract for an undoubtedly outrageous premium). Since prices will be more transparent, people will have more bargaining power and prices will inevitably go down.

2. Pick a carrier, any carrier. Even allowing several carriers offering different services to the same device might make sense in some situations. Also, as I said, once and for all adopt a national standard network to improve coverage and stop dropped calls.

3. Complete open source applications a la PCs. Use any software you like. The ridiculous situation with hobbled third party apps on cell phones, propiretary browsers/messaging/GPS/media apps with extremely limited functionality and "Jailbreak" type situations etc has got to end. A cellphone is just a computer. As PCs have proven, open architecture is the way forward.

This seems to be Google's plan with Android (at least on the software side). Let's hope the carriers are forced to get rid of their monopolisitc practices. the speed of innovation would accelerate like a rocket.

Anthony919

Because we are new here, we are sorting out several things and it is not always obvious who the caller is - not all numbers show up on the caller ID, either as a name or company. And anyway, why should I be forced to change my normal behavior, of picking up the phone when it rings?

I didn't move from crappy England, to a better life here, only to become worried of the cell phone ringing!

Anthony919

Spoken like a true Brit - don't know the difference between a genuine complaint and whinge - you don't have to respond, sir, if you find my posts annoying.

Thank you however, for your history lesson on mobile phones, some of which was interesting. Its just a shame you lessen your standing with the above statement.

Jerseygirl

Maybe when you've lived here a little longer...you'll realise that 'crappy England' isn't so crappy afterall.

augigi

Well jeez OP, you come off sounding like a total dick.

britvic

Here here.