Text 8107, 38 rader
Skriven 2010-06-05 09:13:14 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
   Kommentar till text 8090 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: Cellphone woes (was: Bargeld lacht)
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Dale Shipp wrote to Ward Dossche on Friday June 04 2010 at 23:17:

WD>> I pay my parking-meter by cellphone, I take the bus and pay by
WD>> cellphone, I take the train and pay by cellphone, I buy a bread and
WD>> pay by cellphone, I get a coke out of a softdrinksdispenser and pay
WD>> by cellphone, etc...

DS> My cell phone will not do any of that -- but then it is never turned
DS> on except in rare occasions and only costs me about $95 per year.

That much? I have several cellphones - don't use them except rarely, as the
connections are _much_ more expensive than fixed-line ones - and have never
paid more than EUR 50 for one. Then I use a prepaid SIM card, which costs
(using a discounter) EUR 5 here and carries EUR 5 of phoning balance, so the
card is essentially free. The card can be used for one year without adding
money, and even then I can add only EUR 5 to get another full year of service.

Your $95 yearly thus seems very expensive to me.

But the American system, where the _receiver_ of a cellphone call pays the
bill, also seems pretty disadventageous to me too (Who can control the people
who call him and prevent someone from just calling again and again to run up
the receiver's bill?) - and can be quite a ripoff if you call someone in the
States with a European cellphone: as the caller, you pay the bill in Europe.
But the receiver in the States _also_ pays the bill, as that's the custom
there. So the call gets paid twice.

DS> I don't believe in cell phones that do all that stuff.

The cellphones don't do it, the infrastructure does. This business started in
Finnland, where you can meanwhile make all sorts of micropayments using a
cellphone. I don't care for it either, because of the data you spread around in
the process, but many people place more value on convenience than privacy.

Cheers, Bob

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