Advice for calling US Mobile Phone?

I'm paying US$90 a month for 2,500 prime time minutes. That includes incoming and outgoing calls. Calls made before 7am or after 7pm are free, as are calls to other subscribers on the ATT/Cingular network.

In comparing the offerings, consider the following high end plan:

Thus spaketh Joseph:

Isn't that the point of having a mouth, be pretty stupid to only talk out of one half!

Makes you wonder how the USA got to the moon, or out of the studio.

If English isn't your first language, then I can forgive you for finding English difficult to comprehend.

I believe our system is better, and you believe your system is better. I am not going to change your mind, and you ain't going to change my mind on the matter.

So there is little point arguing on that matter, as I can't see either the USA or Europe changing the system they have in place, but that doesn't mean I can't voice my opinion on the matter.

Thus spaketh Joseph:

I am not.

Thus spaketh Joseph:

And you're a prick, but you probably can't change that.

Yes, that's correct. I'm surprised that it has a different meaning to you. GSM World defines the term roaming here

It only select the network which has a roaming agreement with its native network, i.e. initial service provider. For example;

I'd say the same applies to you but I won't. I am not in kindergarten.

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Generally not. Roaming is (usually) when your home carrier does not cover an area (not just poor to nil signal.) As an example if T-Mobile and AT&T/cingular cover the same area it's highly likely that you will only be able to register on your home network. If on the other hand you're in an area that is not served by your home carrier and the other carrier does serve that area you may likely be able to use their network (with the proviso that there's a roaming agreement in place.) In other instances roaming arrangements change such as what's happened in Canada. There used to be two national carriers Rogers and Microcell (Fido and other resellers.) Rogers bought the Microcell network and now Fido customers can access either the original Fido/Microcell network or the Rogers network. It was not always so.

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Or what your home operator has as a preferred roaming partner or the strongest network that has a roaming agreement.

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On some, you don't pay to retrieve them, either.

it would be less convenient, and I would have to pay the extra costs of getting there. You aren't going to pay my transport costs so that's a "caller pays" system.

Phil

In message of Wed, 25 May 2005, Stuart Friedman writes

In message of Wed, 25 May 2005, {{{{{Welcome}}}}} writes

Here,here DF

If you choose not to answer, it usually goes to voicemail, and you pay for that anyway. And if the name's not in your phonebook, you either take the call or take the chance of missing a call you want to get - which is kind of a major point of having a mobile phone for me in the first place.

Does anyone have stats for what proportion of the population have mobile phones in the UK compared to North America?

It seemed to me that last time I lived in the latter (until about 1.5 years ago), more people (proportionally) had mobiles here in the UK. I'm sure that the possibility of being contact-able, without having to pay for a contract, is the major reason for that. Certainly I wouldn't have had a mobile phone when I first did if I'd had to sign up to a contract. I used a PAYG for about four years before getting a contract, and if I couldn't get a "free" contract (via cashback deal) I would go back to PAYG now. For me - and I'm sure I'm not alone in this - being available for people to contact is more important than being able to make calls when I'm out. It's rare that I need to make a call that can't wait a couple of hours until I'm next to a landline, but I find it reassuring that I can be contacted in an emergency at any time (I have elderly family members and four children).

Would it be possible for you to forward your landline number to your mobile? (I don't know, I'm just wondering if it's something that's possible and might work for your situation.)

I've not heard of any emergency situation where someone has been told they can call a landline but not a mobile number.

I can quite see how it might be an issue if the "emergency" were that a school pupil had forgotten his homework, but then that's not the kind of emergency I'm concerned about being contacted for. In a case where someone had been injured or was ill, the cost difference between calling a mobile number and a landline is not large enough that it's going to stop someone from allowing a call to be made.

All the networks have holes in them where there is minimal or no coverage. If you don't know where you're going to be, you can't really predict which of the networks (if any) will have no/low coverage.

When the USAns refer to "roaming", does this mean that they can use somebody else's network, transparently, if that is the only one available ? How does the handset select amongst many networks, if the difference between them is slight (but all poor) ?

Richard [in PE12]

Once you get to gold rewards level with T-Mobile you can get 10 cent/minute which lasts for a year's time.

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Ha! It's to pay for everything. That's how the company makes money on the airtime that they sell. They're just designating who pays for the freight that's all. Mobile companies make money on the service that they sell whether that's airtime for voice traffic or whatever they charge for data use on their network.

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