Text 9010, 140 rader
Skriven 2010-07-06 18:55:13 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
   Kommentar till text 8968 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Cellphone woes
======================
01 Jul 10 11:16, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

 RB> Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Wednesday June 30 2010 at 17:56:

 RW>>>> You pay for a lot of things; cell phones, extra minutes, taxes,
 RW>>>> etc.. But you don't pay for airtime directly...
 RB>>>                                      ^^^^^^^^

 RB> [...]

 RB>>> The "extra" was your addition to what I wrote, which was that you
 RB>>> pay for incoming calls as well as outgoing ones.

 RW>> Which isn't true, as my billing statements prove. Your point?

 RB> That you don't know what you're talking about and even admitted that
 RB> above,

Contrary to your claim that you don't pay for airtime. The only difference
I see is that you pay for yours before you use it. I pay for mine after
they figure out how much I'm awarded next month.

 RB> but have such a short span of attention that you forgot your
 RB> own quote by the time you wrote the above sentence.

I'd say that you're dillusioned, again...

 RB>>> You pay for the cellphone communication package - and that includes
 RB>>> the air time for _incoming_ calls.

 RW>> And you do the same. i.e. you also pay for air time.

 RB> Not on received calls like you do.

LOL! You're so full of shit it runs out of your mouth.

 RW>> But the worst part of your service is that your minutes must be
 RW>> purchased in advance and they expire some time later.

 RB> We don't buy "minutes" here at all, as the SIM cards just have a
 RB> certain balance if they're the prepaid ones

LOL! Of course not, you buy airtime! hehee...

 RB> (many people also have contracts, where you don't prepay), and
 RB> nowadays the balance is generally good for as long as you want to
 RB> want to use the card - and if you don't want to use it anymore, the
 RB> balance is refunded.

No, you lose the minutes (airtime) that you haven't used.

 RB> You're confusing the American system with those in other countries
 RB> again: I've seen what lousy conditions the American prepaid SIM cards
 RB> offer - extra-short validity periods and then the companies keep any
 RB> unused balance:

Not exactly right. If you allow your prepaid phone to lapse, then you lose
the minutes. If you continue to keep your phone paidup, you don't lose the
minutes you paid for and didn't use.

 RB> we did away with that in Germany around 5 years ago, when several
 RB> providers were sued for that kind of practice.

That's also been the case here for a few years now.

 RB>>> But the fact is not mentioned in the price you pay, or if it is,
 RB>>> it's sold to you as a "benefit" like '120 "free" minutes per
 RB>>> month'.

 RW>> LOL! I pay for 400 minutes/month.

 RB> You pay even if you don't need or want the time. Nice system for the
 RB> provider: a guaranteed income regardless of whether you use the
 RB> service or not.

You conveniently overlook that my minutes (airtime) continue to add up
rather than go away. In my case, I'm glad that I have the convenience of a
telephone wherever I go. i.e. we don't even have a landline anymore.

BTW, this is also the reason there are no 'pay phones' at the liquor store
or gas station anymore. Nobody used them and they went away!

 RW>> Then I'm given (free) 5000 minutes/month for certain times of the
 RW>> day and what I don't use, roll over to next month and so on until
 RW>> they roll off after 11 months (replaced by the current months roll
 RW>> over minutes).

 RB> Yeah, we've been through that "free" business before. Ever hear the
 RB> old saying that nobody has anything to give away? It's still true,
 RB> and people who are cautious always look for the hook in such "free"
 RB> offers.

Have you ever heard the old saying that 'some people will never believe
anything someone else tells them because they already know it all'?

 RB>>> Which you wouldn't need if you didn't pay for them in the first
 RB>>> place.

 RW>> Unlike yourself, my cell phone is my only phone.

 RB> You do like to make assumptions, don't you? But OK, in this case
 RB> you're right.

I can't be wrong, as you've stated right here that your cell phone is for
occasional use when you're away from home. Easy deduction my dear what
son.

 RB> In Germany, the charges for fixed-line calls are _much_ lower than
 RB> for any cellphone rate (prepaid or contract), so only people who
 RB> rarely call anyone find it practical to do without a land line.

Just the opposite here. Even with the bare minimum landline service
in the US, it costs more than half as much as a cell phone, which can be
used anywhere.

 RW>> It serves the purpose of a phone much better than having to pay for
 RW>> a land line, which you can't use a block away from your house.

 RB> True, but why would you want to except maybe in an emergency?

I guess perhaps it's because I have more friends than you do and we're
all busy making arrangements by cell phone to meet up and party...

 RB> I have several cellphones with prepaid SIMs (no more than around EUR
 RB> 5 on any of them) for such use, and carry them when I'm outside the
 RB> house (although I don't have the phone switched on unless I make a
 RB> call), but since the cost for a cellphone call is around 7-8 times as
 RB> high as with a land line, I certainly wouldn't want to use a
 RB> cellphone exclusively.

I can't blame you there because that's the same reasoning I used to switch
this household to exclusively cell phones. Neither cell phone is switched
off unless there's a reason to. i.e. a switch to Daylight Savings Time or
vice versa requires a cell phone reset of the internal clock.

                R\%/itt

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