Of interest to cell phone owning modelers and their kinfolk...

Sempak

New Member
Jun 19, 2002
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Melbourne, Australia
shaygetz said:
but unlike your home phone, most of you pay for your incoming calls. These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run.

Can somebody explain this to me? In Australia only the person making the call (either to or from the "cellular phone" pays for the call...
 

SteamerFan

Member
Sep 3, 2004
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Chris,
In the US (not sure about canada or the Europe) the system was intially very costy and very few had Cell phones. This caused companies to recuporate the costs by charging the Users for both incoming and outgoing calls. unfortunatly, now that cell phones are well saturated, the US lawmakers haven't regulated this antiquated system to comform with land line laws, so we still pay for incoming calls as well as outgoing calls.

In essence, one call is being billed to two different people. luckily some companies arebeginning to realize this is not right, now that the Feds stepped in and allowed number transfers, and are allowing free incoming calls to other members on the same network. hopefully in the next ten years we'll see a system that is just like land lines in place, but don't hold your breath, greed is a powerful evil.
 

N Gauger

1:20.3 Train Addict
Dec 20, 2000
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South Eastern, PA
mywebpages.comcast.net
Sempak said:
Can somebody explain this to me? In Australia only the person making the call (either to or from the "cellular phone" pays for the call...

I think I can do it in 2000 words or less :) GREED!!!!!!!

Back 15 years ago - when they first came out - Cell phones were "bags" that you wore on a shoulder strap. With, what is now a Large camcorder battery. I bought my first one On Sale for $340.00 :eek: Yeah - I HAD to have one :D :D :D It was $26.00 / month

The second one was a bit smaller - and it could actually fit in the car too!!! LOL

All the 3 main companies charged you from "Tower" to "Phone" both ways.....

If you called out on your cell to a landline - you paid for the "Airtime Plus the Landline" charge..

If you Called out to another cell phone...your minutes were charged & so were the "other guys" Both "Airtime Charges " (From Tower to phone)

If someone called you from their home - They paid Landline "Local call" and you paid the Airtime.

Nowadays - You get 2 - 4 free phones with a new account (or number transfer) and you get an average of 1000 Minutes free -- Plus - Incoming calls in some cases are not counted toward your minutes....

Think of the cel phones as being like a car - You used to have to buy a heater as an aftermarkrt part.... Then it came free & you had to buy the A/C... now that comes free and you have to buy the satellite radio & the GPS.. Etc etc etc etc

That's my 2000 words worth..... LOL :D :D :D :D