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Calling Cell Phones Could Cost More
tusixoh writes "CNN.com reports on another reason to keep a close eye on your phone bill. This fall, a subtle realignment in America's phone systems could cause a dramatic increase in what we pay to call cell phones that were once considered local now incur higher toll charges from landlines. The report states that it is unclear how many customers will be affected by these changes. No phone company would provide details on where people could be affected." Update: 10/25 12:31 GMT by M : The IP list carried a couple of informative articles on this: the original situation, and the informed commentary.
(Fot those in EU US cell phones have regular numbers and are called at regular rates, often free from your local area code)
Because of this, you can practically get a phone for free with no contract, so this model has its up sides. Personally, I prefer the US approach, he who has the phone foots the (monthly) bill!
In Europe (and pretty much everywhere else) cell phones are "calling party pays". This means that it costs more to call a cell phone because the caller pays for it.
For example, in Finland each wireless carrier has its own area code, so you know in advance that you will pay more for the call.
The change in the US means that calls to cell phones might become regional or long distance, but the called party still pays. The US is NOT switching to calling party pays (although Verizon tried it in DE a while back, AFAIK).
In the UK if i go abroad with my UK cellphone say for arguments sake Spain and you call me from anywhere then you will only pay the standard premium cost (approx 40p per min) but as my phone is officially "roaming" as its in another country, I have to pay for the international part of your call to cover the multiple network operators involved ie: the price of a international call from England to Spain so ineffect its like a reverse charge call !
and you feel ripped off!
a lot of people have been caught out when their friends have called them while they are on holiday and they chat thinking its a regular call until they get home and see their cellphone bill and see hideous charges incurred for other peoples calls, needless to say sales calls get a mouthful of abuse.
I already got rid of my home phone and just use a cell phone. Also, I will be moving to VoIP at the office as soon as Vonage can get me a Denver area code.
It's nice to be free from those local phone service bastards.
I have done some research recently (my contract is coming to an end). In order to improve my (AT&T) plan I have to do a 2 year commitment, otherwise it is *at best* the same as my current contract. Others companies are about the same, it comes down to quality of coverage in your area, I suppose.
Oh, yeah, if anything, currently every plan I have seen has extended peak time last until 9pm rather than 8pm. So I would say cell plans gotten a bit more expensive...
It's only if you are calling a number whose physical switch is outside your local landline calling area.
For example, I'll take Delaware as an example since it's dead simple. Three counties, three rate centers. If you have a cell phone whose number is from county #1, then county #2 and #3 pay normal intra-lata rates to call your number. Users in county #1 will continue to not pay.
In Delaware, cell companies give you a choice what county you want your number from so most people get one in the same county they live.
Let's take another theoretical example. Let's say you live in Benson AZ and your cell phone number is from Tucscon. It's a toll call from Benson to Tucson for landline users, but since Benson isn't big enough to have its own infrastructure for basing cell phone NUMBERS out of it (not towers), then the charges to call a cell phone based in Tucson from a landline in Benson were waived.
(Above just being an example of a small town with no local calling to its neighboring big town that I know, it's not a literal example)
Did anyone read the article? What the phone companies did is *worse* than that. They eliminated something that *will* affect many dialup ISP users. Not to mention all those companies in New York City that pay not to have their area changed (although that's a whole other story)...
What the local phone companies are getting rid of is "reverse billing." This is a service which allows a company located in Region A to offer a phone number in Region B by paying the difference in cost for phone calls made to their Region B number. When cell phone companies first started up, they only had callable offices in relatively few locations, which could have made calling cell phones expensive. Nowadays, this is not a bit deal anymore.
Unfortunately, a lot of other firms like using reverse lookups. ISPs use reverse billing to allow them to have phone numbers all over the place while maintaining only a few central dialup pools. Outreach programs often use these numbers to reach out to communities that they would not have been able to easily call them otherwise.
Personally, I feel (*hope*) that CNN seems to be missing some details. If the phone companies truely are getting rid of reverse billing, one would think that they would be getting rid of all their 800/888/877/866 numbers that are *entirely* reverse billed down to pay phone costs. And if a cell phone provider with a central switch in Region A serves customers in region A', and said switch is located in region A, I don't see why reverse billing would come into play; the cell phone company would be like any other large business that just happened to own a few hundred phone numbers in the area.
I work as a network engineer and I do the routing for one of the major cell phone companies here in the U.S.
To answer your question, until 11/24/2002 phone numbers, for the most part, are given out in 10K blocks (NPA/Nxx) to specific compaines; wireline, wireless, whatever. In theory, if you know the first six digits of the phone number, you can tell if it's wireless or wireline. That is, if you have access to that information (like I do). To the best of my knowledge, I don't think people outside of Telcos have access to this so the point is moot.
After 11/24, all Telcos will be participating in number pooling. Basically we donate numbers back to the pool for other carriers to use (if we're only using 50 numbers out of 10K) and whatever we still use is routed back to us via local number portability. So now even if you had the aforementioned information, it could be invalid. Basically your screwed one way or the other.
To further complicate matters, after 11/24/2003 all numbers will be portable between any carrier within a rate center. So you can move your number from (ex.) Verizon landline to AT&T Wireless to Nextel, to AT&T Local Services...and on and on....as many times as you'd like. By then, it's impossible to know.
You can turn a cell phone off and the calls will still get voice mail. Landline phones just keep ringing and ringing, which is not good when telemarketers call very early on weekend mornings.
Also, most cell phones include caller-ID for free. This makes it easy to screen calls that you don't want (in your case, just let your Boss go through to voice mail).
As for your complaint about drivers with cell phones, there are earphones that allow a driver to keep both hands on the wheel.
Think of how much faster people are able to call 911 to report a stranded motorist or a crime being committed and how many lives are saved because of cell phones.
As for reception, if that's a big concern then get a phone that still works on the non-digital 800MHZ band where there's coverage across most of the US, even in very rural areas.
Amazing magic tricks
We have the same deal with Cell Phones in Japan. All incoming calls are free, and the use of email often negates the need for outgoing calls. And yes, I did say email, not that dinky SMS protocol.
Most folks don't even bother getting a land line since you have to actually purchase the line for about $600.00+. Calling a local land line is about 3 cents per minute and calling a cell phone is around 10 to 12 cents per minute. Cell phones have a completely different prefix, so you won't accidentally get raped on the bill. The flip side of course is that outgoing calls on cell phones run about 20 cents per minute and you won't find any 4000 night/weekend plans around here. My plan is 5000 yen/mo. (about $38 at the current rate) and I get around 200 outgoing minutes excluding the 1 to 2 yen per email charge and my daily web activities checking news and weather. If I have a busy social calendar, which is about 4 dates per week plus assorted work functions, my bill is arround $100.00. I never use my land line for anything more than a link to my 12MBit ADSL provider.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky