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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 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.
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