ShopAlerts by AT&T [telecom]

Heh-heh ... more likely to drive me to distraction (!) than to any point of sale :-) .

Cheers, -- tlvp

Talk about trying to place a positive spin on a Pied Piper scheme.

[Moderator snip]

You have to opt in to get the messages - which should limit the fallout from people who dont want it (although I did not see a way to opt out again afterwards)

But - the phone user bears the cost of the text messages while AT+T make money from the advertiser as well.

anyone else think this part is backwards?

On Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:18:42 +0000, Stephen wrote: .........

In Australia (and probably other countries as well) mobile users do not pay to receive calls or SMS - but on the flip side all outgoings from mobiles cost way more than "normal" phones.

Have we had a discussion of the merits of this way versus the US way of doing things where the example of this thread costs the (passive) receiver money?

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

Often. People in caller pays like it because incoming calls are "free", but of course they're not, they're charged to someone else. Caller pays has what's known as a "terminating monopoly", which means that if I want to call your mobile, I have to pay whatever price your carrier sets for people to call. As a result, terminating prices tend to be very high, and the actual per-minute price people pay is considerably higher than in mobile pays areas.

In North America, where it's all mobile pays, we're quite aware of the price of both outgoing and incoming calls, so there is a great deal of competition for both. I pay 10 cents/min on my cheap low volume prepaid phone; people who talk a lot and have monthly bundles pay less.

R's, John

(and don't forget Canada)

And these days, more and more wireless providers offer fixed monthly prices for "unlimited" US calling, or even unlimited US _AND_ Canada calling! That includes both outgoing calls, and ALL incoming calls.

As for text messaging, I simply told at&t/cingular that I don't text, and never intend on texting anyone. I had been getting $pam texts of "stock market quotes" from "brokers" in the middle of the night at

1am or 2am, or $pam texts of sports scores and wanting me to "purchase" their "package" of "unlimited" incoming texts of sports scores. I don't think that these $pam texts were coming from at&t/cingular, but rather from some $leazy $cumbag $pammer. It sort of reminded me of the old 900/976 PAY numbers.

I think that at&t/cingular removed the charges for receiving these $pam texts, and the second time it happened, I called them up and told them to simply BLOCK ALL texts. And I have had to tell people that I know that they should NEVER ASSUME that anyone automatically has texting capability, or even if they do, they might have texting turned off. If I still had my old analog AMPS cellphone, it wouldn't have even been text-capable at all! But for those people who still insist that they just "have" to text me instead of CALLING me (and leaving a voicemail if necessary, afterall, it's a PHONE first, not a TTY), and I don't get their text, it's NOT my problem, but THEIR'S!

at&t/cingular told me that I might still receive "administrative" texts from them, at NO charge. I did tell them that "admin texts" from at&t/cingular should NOT include any of "their" telemarketing, even if I wouldn't be charged, and so far, I haven't received any such at&t/cingular-based telemarketing texts, even though it would be "free" to me.

... and that I could still send a "remaining monthly minutes" text request to them, and receive (moments later) a text-back indicating how many "free" (voice) min's are remaining that month, all at no charge. But about a year ago, I switched over the unlimited US plan, and there's no longer a need for any "impromptu" monthly (voice) min's remaining (free) text from them!

Mark J. Cuccia markjcuccia at yahoo dot com

This topic has been breached many many many times. Bringing it up again is not likely to settle anything.

I suspect flat-rate, local area, wireline subscribers in the US would revolt if they had to pay for making a local call to anyone.

And, I suspect the regulators protect them from that happening.

When I upgraded to my iPhone in Dec, 2008, I instituted text blocking on my account (wife has old Motorola, but it can receive text).

I have not received any text messages from AT&T.

There's another difference to consider. In the USA there is no way for the calling party to know whether the number he is calling is a landline or a mobile. Indeed, because of number portability, a number whose office code is for landlines could actually have been ported to a mobile. I believe that on other continents mobile numbers are distinct so that the calling party will (or should) know that he is calling a mobile.

Dick

Can you port a mobile number to a land line?

In the old days, if you moved to a new house within the area served by your CO, you could keep your old number. Does the portability stuff let me keep my old number if I move to a new CO within the same phone company? Or move to a different area code?

I receive a text message from AT&T every month when I pay my bill. It specifies it is a free message. I am not sure why AT&T finds it worthwhile to send this message, which is simply an annoyance.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

In most areas, yes. There may be rural areas where you can't port between mobile and landline, but in urban areas it should work.

Most of the porting goes the other way, people dump their landline in favor of mobile, but it works the other way, too.

R's, John

Under some circumstances, yes. The simplest being where the number of that mobile is a ported land-line number.

Maybe.

No.

There should be a way to opt out of this notification.

First port it to Google Voice, and then set forwarding numbers to any domestic number you wish.