Reuters On Telephone Cultures

mamladm writes "Reuters has an interesting article about the Differences in Telephone Cultures between the US and Europe. It describes how the different regulatory frameworks have created distinct cultures on how telephones are being used in the US versus Europe. The article mainly discusses mobile phone usage, though."

Comments

Re:Revenue

[Ironsides]

Perhaps the U.S. should look at how the Europeon Union did it. All the same standard = more money.

Or perhaps it's 50% more people and a 400% higher population density.

Of course! Different costs

[redelm]

There are big differences in Euro & US phone usages, mostly driven by costs. US has had flat rate (fixed monthly pricing) in most areas. Euros have almost always paid by the minute (IIRC except *.fi). This slowed the adoption of dial-up internet, sped up cellphones & broadband.

Old habits will die hard. I think Europeans will continue to use the phone for messages rather than as a surrogate for being there.

Well, Duh

[Jameth]

An FCC report said American mobile users talk more and pay less than Europeans, citing it as "evidence that the U.S. market is effectively competitive" compared to Europe and Japan.

But eight of 10 European Union residents have mobile phone numbers while only six of 10 Americans do.

Wow, more EU residents have cells than US residents do. With the differences they're citing, it's no wonder, seeing as America generally has a better POTS than Europe. In the US, it costs just a little bit of money to have unlimited local and incoming calls on a land-line, plus it never has an error, ever, of any sort. So, it's not much of a surprise that the US has slightly lower cell uptake.

Re:Well, Duh

[dr_canak]

In my experience,

Land lines in the US are overwhelmingly crystal clear, regardless of when and where you call from. In almost all cases, bad quality is on the phone, not the phone line. I have no idea what the percentages are, but I think almost everyone has gone cordless these days and that's where you here cracks and pops, faded connections, and interference. It has nothing to do with the actual land line, at least not in 99.9999% of cases.

And I also agree with the other posts to this thread, calling in the US is about as easy as it gets. It's the same no matter where you are. The only difference lies in whether you need 10 digit dialing to make a local call. But you ought to be able to approach any phone, any where and use it just like the last phone you used.

jeff

Re:Well, Duh

[Wudbaer]

As I said, it's some time ago, 1995, to be specific (ok, long time in technology, but at least back then IMO the European land lines had a much better quality and were easier to use). I did several calls around NYC (Verizon) and in Massachusetts (?), both from pay phones and Motels. The quality of the pay phones was apalling ; the quality of phoning from the Motels not too bad but still IMO worse than you usually get in Europe.

But what really drove me mad was this whole thing another poster described above "Welcome to *insert whichever long distance operator*. Please enter your major credit card or calling card number." *fighting with entering the card number* *wait* Depending on the operator: "The card number you gave is not valid. Thank you for playing." (back then either Sprint or MCI didn't take non-US credit card numbers, but amazingly not everytime but apparently depending on the geographic region you were in inside the US). So retry, this time trying to reach some other long distance operator using some prefix number, playing again the CC number game, getting thrown out of the system in the middle of the process for no apparent reason, lather rinse repeat. I really liked my stay in the US, but the telephone system really drove me mad.

From phoning home in several European countries I was used to either just put in a half truckload of coins and phone away or getting a calling card that works troughout the whole country and not only for phones of a certain provider, dial my home number with the respective country prefix, and voila ! instant success.

As said before, most likely it got better in the meantime, but back then it really really sucked.

Well, that's the difference, isn't it.

[Asprin]

"...The article mainly discusses mobile phone usage, though."

Well, that's the thing, then, isn't it? In the US, dirt is pretty cheap and plentiful, so land lines and wires that require poles to by strung up everywhere have predominated where the relative scarcity of space in European and Japanese cities has forced a much higher adoption rate for mobile technologies.

Tell me if I'm wrong, eh?

Re:Revenue

[Epistax]

You know, the population density argument can only be taken so far. Yes, South Korea has an advantage over the US in general for implementing a new system. It's not just population density there: the simply fact that it's small does the trick.
Now move to Europe. If they are to implement standards as a whole, they need to reach all of the European rural areas, just how it hasn't been reached in the US. As the article explains, those areas have been reached there. Whether you're in no-mans land in Scotland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Malta, Lithuania etc... you're connected.

Again my point is that population density doesn't matter much-- land area itself matters more. While a higher population in rural areas (high population rural areas?) would increase incentive for a company to spread there, that only matters so far. Every bit of land you don't cover, even where the population density is zero, will make you lose customers in the more populated areas. I'm from a rural area in Maine. I live in upstate NY. I did not buy a Verizon plan because it did not service my Maine location. Think I'm the only one? Nah.

Oh yeah oh yeah. Poland too.

Re:Enough Cell Phones!!!!

[Benm78]

Actually, I wonder which technology uses more energy if you account for the infrastructure too.

Digging and closing holes to fit many many miles of telephone wire will lead to a fair amount of fuel being used. Also, the copper wires have to be produced which is quite energy intensive too.

I have no idea on the total energy and monetery requirement to operate a mobile vs a land-based service, but I do have a gut feeling that the mobile service will be cheaper to construct in both aspects.

Of course, there is quite a lot of pre-existing landline infrastructure, but that will have to be replaced some day, and new infrastructure is also required when new areas are built up. If you'd have to start from scratch, the mobile solution seems cheaper and faster to construct... many emerging nations even skip most of the landline phase.

No news here...

[Eminence]

It's nothing new, all this has been well known throughout the industry for years. Two points that are missing from the Reuter's text are VoIP and Wi-Fi. Both phenomena are a direct result of America's (more) free market approach. And in both cases the explosion goes on in the US with Europe slowly catching on. It's overall cheaper to communicate if you are in the US then in Europe. So, dear Americans, don't whine, you've got a better deal anyway even without fancy ringtones ($2 each) or other stupid stuff like that.

talk is cheap

[Doc Ruby]

This article is BS. It basically says "Americans get more minutes of talking for less money than Europeans, but don't use the call management features as well, because the US government has only recently started leaving telcos alone, while Europe's governments have meddled with their telcos". What does any of that have to do with the US GSM dropping calls all the time? How about the unreliability of US callerID, because there's no universal inter-telco standard?

Consider the effects of US market saturation with landlines before mobiles appeared, compared to Europe's many "first time callers" without any phones when mobiles were first offered? How about Europeans many languages, in which people can more easily communicate with short SMS messages, rather than demanding interactive multilingual voice calls? Or the role mobile phones play in teenage consumer cultures, in car-hungry America vs. poorer teenage Europe?

No, none of those answers would blame the government for interfering with culture. Some of them might even blame corporations for bad service! And when you get your info from a London telco marketer and an FCC PR flack, why would you bother to validate that solid-gold wisdom "from the horse's mouth"?

Re:Enough Cell Phones!!!!

[Seehund]

I have no idea on the total energy and monetery requirement to operate a mobile vs a land-based service, but I do have a gut feeling that the mobile service will be cheaper to construct in both aspects.

That's my gut feeling as well. Which is why I wonder why GSM calls are (still) an order of magnitude more expensive than POTS calls?

Just like CDs never became cheaper than LPs when the technology matured. And where's my damn flying car? ;)