Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

David Pogue Wants to Take Back the Beep

Posted by timothy on from the pogue-mahone-jerks dept.

David Pogue has distilled into useful form a long-standing complaint I have (and one reason I have long had a voice mail greeting that asked people not to leave me voicemail): cell phone companies set up the greeting, caller instructions, and playback system prompts in large part to maximize their revenue per user; by his calculations, the "mandatory 15-second voicmail instructions" from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and others is earning those companies something near a billion dollars a year in charges. Pogue suggests that users should "take back the beep," and to that end provides contact information for the largest cell carriers in order to register a complaint — and, more helpful in the short run, suggests ways in which to make better use of paid-for phone minutes by alerting callers how to bypass the annoying instructions.

12 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Take back the seconds by alain94040 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does the extra 15 seconds added by the operator really cost me anything since my phone bill uses 1-minute increments?

    What would save us consumers a lot more money is having cellphone operators bill usage by the second. The European Commission already
    forced the European operators to adopt 1-second billing increments.

    --
    crowdsource your iPhone app ideas

    1. Re:Take back the seconds by QuoteMstr · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The French have a higher standard of living than we do, so of course you can expect some prices to be higher. Can you give me a concrete example of a poor market regulation though?

    2. Re:Take back the seconds by zwede · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I keep hearing that every now and then and can't figure out where it comes from. As an engineer my standard of living is immensely higher after I moved to the US from Europe. My gross salary doubled and my income taxes went from 30% to 19%.

    3. Re:Take back the seconds by sammyF70 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      hmm .. let's take Carlin's speech point by point, by slightly paraphrasing what he says :

      • "politicians are puppets controlled by corporations and rich lobbies" . I'd say that is true for the most part, even if it doesn't happen in a direct way. Corporations can threaten to cut jobs, close down factories or offices, relocate in another state or country or even just disproportionally increase the price of their product if the CEOs think that new legislations might decrease the profit for their shareholders. That would result in, at least, jobs being lost in the area and might (and probably would) prove a big enough incentive to stop certain laws or regulations to be passed. Everybody is just doing their job : politicians have to evaluate whether the law or regulation is worth the corporation's reaction, and corporation's need to maximise the profit for the shareholders. (I'll pass the cases where hands have to be greased or forced, or when a politician only thinks of his career)"
      • "Corporations, etc ... don't want the common folks to be capable of critical thinking", Although it would make sense (read "1984"), there is no direct evidence of it ... only circumstantial : the rise of Fox Network for example, or the way newspapers will rather tell you that Lindsay Lohan broke her toe nail, or that the giants won the superball rather than that, again, X american soldiers were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan one day earlier. Incidentally repeatedly pounding on how great your nation is and making kids repeat that over and over is a great way to hammer obedience in the mind of the people you want to govern
      • "Society has a class system, and most people are not in the ruling/rich class". well ... that there is a widening gap between rich and poor (yes, I know ... 2 years old. But I don't believe this has changed much. Prove me wrong). So ... nothing to see. He is right. And before you reply "The poor deserved it. Everybody can be rich", check this very nice and interesting TED talk about (along other things) Meritocracies
      • "Politicians don't care about the people who elect them". I'm not completely as nihilistic as Carlin. I honestly think many politicians start their career because they actually genuinely care. Sadly, as should be obvious to anybody who switched from his productive job to Management and was full of hope to be able to make a change, the higher you are the thinner the air is and the more you just struggle to survive. Even if some politicians do still care about the people after they've been elected to a position of power, helping people is probably more of an afterthought while juggling with more important issues (what those can be is probably not even something the politicians can decide themselves)

      so ... 'the paranoid ramblings of a deluded old man shouting at hippies' ? perhaps, but at least he actually knows what he is talking about.

      --
      "DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
    4. Re:Take back the seconds by Lord+Ender · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ha! My ex is a lawyer in France, and I can assure you she works far far more than 35 hours per week. The standard work week is a fantasy. The French, in almost every case make significantly less money than their American counterparts.

      They have a better social safety net. True. But overall, they are significantly poorer.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  2. Can't remember the last time I used voicemail by ickleberry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But there is no doubt it is a huge earner for the networks. Here in Ireland, and even on Skype now you often have to pay something like 5c as soon as the phone is answered, this includes getting someones voicemail. I never leave a message, I have listened to my own messages being played back at someone elses house and just didn't like it. I prefer to call back or send a SMS.

    The worst has to be getting someone's voicemail when calling from a satellite phone, 75c down the drain for nothing. Really wish there was a 5 second chance for you to hang up and not get charged, or better still abolish voicemail altogether. Let people run their own answering machines if they desire but ban voicemail

  3. Mod Parent Up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, millions upon millions of people are bloody morons. Big corporations are screwing them over only as long as they remain moronic. Can you explain why I should care?

    We shouldn't. Those people are making the service CHEAPER for the rest of us.

  4. Re:Man up, you Tracphone bitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And while we're at it, why don't you go ahead and turn in your geek card for not knowing you could hit # and skip right to the beep.
    What's so geeky about knowing a lot about the phone system? Phreaking is close to dead these days.

  5. AT&T disables this on iPhones by crevistontj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not sure what their motivation was, but AT&T turned off the annoying and insulting 30 seconds of instructions for people who call their iPhone customers. All it does is play the message, then beep.

  6. Ditch all the instructions. by DavidTC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We're at the point in society where people should know how to leave a message on a damn answering machine. Hell, we stopped having the 'http://' on URLs in ads and business cards five years ago, but somehow people have forgotten how to operate an answering machine/voice mail after them being common for 25 years!

    Also, we don't need to be informed someone can't answer the phone, but to leave a message and he'll get back to you. First of all, the voice mail message does not magically know that that is true...maybe he can answer it, and just didn't. Maybe he's dead, and won't return your call ever. Maybe he just doesn't fucking like you. Stop telling me nonsensical shit you don't actually know, you machine. Just record the damn message.

    When an answering machines picks up, I should hear, in most cases, be something like "This is John Smith's phone. *beeeep*".

    And the only reason there should be any message at all is to confirm we have the right phone number.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  7. Re:Ridiculous by P0ltergeist333 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know of exactly one, it was not no-bid, in fact their competitor (Dyncorp)won the bid, but it was awarded to KBR because changing contractors would be too expensive. To say this equates with trumping up an aggressive war and awarding the VAST MAJORITY of all contracts (even performing tasks that they never performed before, which they subsequently sub-contracted to great detriment of the soldiers and civilians of Iraq) to Haliburton / KBR et al is disengenuous and a perfect example of right wing empty rhetoric. You may not have known it was a right wing LIE, but SOMEONE down the line knew it was, and yet spread it to all the right wingers who never bother to fact check their so-called 'sources' like Lush Bimbo and Michael the savage Weiner.

    --
    One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
  8. Re:Meaningless numbers by Sparr0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah, a "certain percentage" being about 25%. If you tack an extra 15 seconds onto 100 calls of otherwise random length, you will use 25 extra minutes of airtime.

    And don't get me started on Verizon's new "please enjoy the music while your party is contacted", so that you get charged while their phone is *RINGING*..