OT - Cellphone billing

[Duncan MacGregor]

Both cell services and Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) have networks  to 
pay for.

Of course, as a customer, it seems more fair to pay for what you have chosen, 
rather than what is inflicted on you. Canada Post charges to deliver a 
message, as does POTS.
  
With Plain Old Telephone Service, if you cannot  complete a call, say getting 
a busy signal, you pay nothing. With Canadian cell, you pay before you pick 
up the phone, when you pick up the phone, when you make a call and when you 
receive it. You usually do this with a telephone tied to the vendor network, 
that you pay for perpetually.

An unfair billing system that restricts growth and development in call-based 
services, methinks. 

Duncan



On February 27, 2008 11:31:59 pm Ian Petersen wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 11:24 PM, William Muriithi
>
> <william.muriithi-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >  I have for long noticed a billing difference between America system -
> >  USA and Canada (Not sure about the others as I haven't visited them)
> >  that is really different to that in Europe and Africa.  When A call B,
> >  in Americas, you charge A and B. In Africa and Netherlands, you only
> >  charge A unless B was roaming when he/she received a call.
> >
> >  Now, I am not whining and don't expect Americas to adopt other
> >  countries' systems, but what logic is used to explain the above?  Is
> >  there like a history about it, because that is all I can think of.
> >  Imagine someone sending you a letter and the post office decided to
> >  charge both the recipient and sender? I understand the issue with
> >  metric and English units, other quirks, but dude/dudets, this one
> >  don't make much sense, in my opinion.
>
> I don't know if there's a history behind it (besides the fact that
> phones here have traditionally been run by a monopoly and the
> relatively new competition isn't much competition) but I think the
> justification is that even though B didn't initiate the call, B still
> has to use the cell company's resources to receive the call--B is
> paying for "airtime".  If a cell calls a land line, only the caller
> pays and, conversely, if a land line calls a cell, only the receiver
> pays.  There might be a better system (and there are certainly cheaper
> options compared to Canada), but the system we've got is at least
> pretty consistent.
>
> Ian



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Duncan MacGregor    --- Toronto ---
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