Advice for calling US Mobile Phone?

People constantly keep bringing up what goes on in their home country and seem to think that conditions equally apply everywhere. That's just not so. Constantly bringing it up may make you feel grand and superior but it does nothing to change people's situations.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

For the monhtly fee you could use the telephone 24 hours a day for 30 days to make local calls - to landline or to mobile - with no additional charges.

I have a landline because:

a) I can't get broadband on a mobile.

b) I can make unlimited off-peak calls for free to UK landlines.

c) I can make calls to anywhere in the "first world" (ie Western Europe, North America, Australasia and other places) for far less than 6.9 cents per minute - except to mobiles in countries where it is free to receive.

d) Family and friends can call me much more cheaply on my landline than my mobile.

e) I'm not spending large amounts of time with an RF transmitter a few cm from my brian.

-- Andy

Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking. Did you not see "the receiver pays and I will have a conversation as long as both parties are willing." That implies that the party who is paying for the call is not as you say "babbling" but is having a conversation for as long as is mutually agreed by both parties. You really do need to pay attention!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Whose needs you have to account for. There is no way I'd ever give up my landline while the vast majority of people who phone me do so from a landline - it'd cost them about 10 times as much to call me.

Because the receiver may not know it is long distance/international till they answer, or even then.

-- Andy

Eh? I didn't say I don't have a mobile - I said most people who phone me do so from a landline. Some of *them* may not have a mobile, and most who do have a PAYG mobile which is expensive to use.

I think is unfair to expect people to pay 10 times the cost to call me on my mobile rather than my landline.

Why should they have to check every time?

Nearly all mobiles have caller ID. In the UK most landlines don't.

-- Andy

You mean the line rental? Well, of course. No other fees though.

In the US I was paying about US$25/month (19 euro) for unlimited calls to local landlines and mobiles. As you can imagine, calling patterns in that environment are quite different - people stay on the phone for hours.

I think we can assume from this that people would prefer to spend more time on the phone and find more value in doing so, but in the high-cost European telecoms market they cannot afford to.

That startup cost is insanely high as well. 100 euros??

So basically we have a situation where the mobile in Finland is somewhat the lesser of two evils.

miguel

I signed up for DSL on a line with no phone service in DC in 2000 and as far as I know it's still being used (through Covad on Verizon's wires).

It makes good sense, since with people cancelling landlines, at least this way the ILEC can make some money (by renting the pair to the DSL provider). Otherwise the house might go to cable modem and mobile and leave the ILEC with no revenue at all.

miguel

The broadband connection goes down the physical landline wire. If I didn't have the landline I couldn't have broadband (cable is an option for some people here but not all streets have cable - mine doesn't).

Well, if you have no need to make phone calls for much cheaper rates than you are paying, why join in this thread?

-- Andy

I find this surprising if true. It costs me USD0.028/minute to call a Finnish landline and USD0.181/minute to call a Finnish mobile - that's 6 times more expensive. Either Finnish mobile providers are subsidizing calls between each other's networks, or they are colluding and providing lower prices for inter-network termination than they provide to other operators, or I have misunderstood your claim, or your claim is incorrect.

miguel

They might if they knew it would result in the cost of their outgoing calls dropping to half or less.

miguel

What does this mean? In both the US and Europe either party is free to hang up the phone when they are tired of the conversation. What is the relevance of who placed the call?

miguel

Doesn't matter - he's ahead of you way before 3750 minutes.

At "6.9-8.9" (which I'll just call 7.9), he's paying less than you after as little as than 10 minutes of calling per day. With each additional minute of calling he pays less and less than you do.

miguel

Well even the more expensive ones are under ten cents a minute with just a few euros base fee. For example Sonera One: 8.9 cents a minute and

Here one could not make then with a land line and I doubt they can do it in the U.S. either if one considers the base fee also. Average land line user makes 100 five minute local calls a month. This costs about 30 euros a month. When one can get a 500 minute package at 17.80 it makes little sense to use the land line. A significant reason for not getting the land line is the opening cost of about 100 euros and the additional costs and trouble when moving.

If one wants to call a specific person and speak long one can get good mobile deals for it like 1500 minutes at 8.90 or 2.95 month and 2 cents a minute. There used to be unlimited mobile deals with cheapest being

Osmo

In my part of Canada the monthly fee is $26.00 with taxes included. This is for a plain subscription, i.e. there is no caller ID or any other calling features.

When I dial a telephone number I don't know whether it is a mobile or land line number. When people give me a telephone number I don't ask if it is a mobile or not. I understand that the receiver pays and I will have a conversation as long as me and the called party are willing.

No they are charged 6.9-8.9 cents a minute. Finnish callers use mobiles to call mobiles. If one wantrs to call from a land line then typical cost is about 17 cents a minute on evenings and wekends and about 27 cents on day time. In addition there is about 10 cents a call.

If you use when all. Do you?

Well to me that is oxymoron if there is a fee it is not free. At leasst it would be illegal here to advertise so. It is clerer to say that they are included in the base fee.

Here they seldom do and it they do there are deals for it.

For that very reason those were not very popular and they have been discontinued. Mobile to mobile calls are cheap.

Osmo

This whole idea is based on the assumption that mobile phones are special. They are not so in Finland. They are the norm.

It costs same here to call any phone: land line or mobile. (remember what is the norm here). In anyway if the caller is reluctant then maybe his message is not that important anyway.

Osmo

No, but it is expected that I pay to travel there. Note that here one knows clearly what is a mobile phone (At least on local calls, on foreign numbers it is harder to tell). For example in Finland all mobile numbers begin with 04 or 050 and no fixed numbers begin with these. So the caller knows that there is extra price. In general if the number begins with 0 there is special cost (long distance, mobile, service number)

But as I have stated so often people do not in general use land lines to call mobiles. The exceptions are people calling from work and old people with no mobiles.

Why should receiver pays not apply to long distance and international calls also?

Osmo

You do not have a mobile? Well in Finland you would be an exception. I think it is just fair and just that everyone is responsible for the cost of his own calls provided of course that he knows the cost.

Well if caller ID they can know. And how do they know in the U.S. if the caller is from same carrier in which case the airtime can be free (as I have heard)

Osmo