Text 1028, 175 rader
Skriven 2006-05-09 14:48:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
   Kommentar till text 1023 av Philip Lozier (1:267/169)
Ärende: none
============
Hello Philip.

09 May 06 06:51, you wrote to me:

 PL>>> so 24/7 I can call anybody in the lower 48, Alaska, and Hawaii
 PL>>> at the fixed rate (39.99 plus taxes and surcharges bringing it
 PL>>> to like 43 or 44 bux a month).

 MvdV>> I would not call $44/month exactly "free".

 PL> Considering I used to run up LD bills around a couple of hundred
 PL> dollars a month,

A couple of hundreds? Djeez you must be a real chatterbug...

 PL>  it's close enough to free for me, being only a couple
 PL> of dollars more than I used to pay for just local service.

Seems to me you pay quit a lot on phone service. My monthly bill for the fixed
phone averages some EUR 15,-


 MvdV>> Who is going to pay one Euro a minute on raoming charges of you
 MvdV>> can make an almost free call with your laptop. a wifi hotspot
 MvdV>> and VOIP?

 PL> I don;t know how wifi and voip work together...

Just as good or as bad as any other VOIP setup I gather from the people who
tried it. As with any VOIP, your milage may vary.

 PL>  wouldn;t inbound be a problem?  Can't always be in a hotspot.

Yes, that may be a problem when one is moving around. Funnu you know, it is
less than ten years ago that only the happy few had cell phones and people like
me had to rely on services like the World Service of the Dutch radio to be
informed when something serious had happened in the family when they were on
holiday. Every evening at six, they read the list of people requested for
urgent contact. A mere ten years ago...

 PL>>> Many of the providers have been offering free "walkie-talkie"
 PL>>> services for people on their network... free calls in essence
 PL>>> for whoever is on either end, no matter how far away they are.

 MvdV>> I bet these customers pay a monthly fee for that....

 PL> Only the normal cell phone monthly charge,

And that "normal" charge would be how much?

 PL> and the ones offering it are at the same price range as the cell
 PL> providers who don't, so there is really no additional charge for it.
 PL> It has made many switch providers.

Yes, I can see the atractiveness of that...

 MvdV>> You see here most cell phones are pre-paid. There is no monthly
 MvdV>> fee and you pay in advance for a card that give you so many
 MvdV>> minutes.

 PL> That is common here, but usually among people who can;t get aproved
 PL> for a monthly plan.  Much more expensive than the plans are...

Ah, then we have another major difference. Over here the prepaid is not more
expensive than a contact with a monthly fee. It depends a bit on usage, but for
the moderate user it mostly works out cheaper. No monthly fee and you only pay
for outgoing calls. It is very popular. Many people here just have the phone so
that they can be called, they seldom make outgoing calls. I hope you can see
this can only work if the caller pays for the air time.

 PL> kinda like the pre-paid AOL that is offered to people who can;t get
 PL> an internet account due to lack of a credit card or a checking
 PL> account.

Over here you need a fixed address to qualify for a contract. Very few people
don't have that.

 PL>>> I hate it.  Nothing is more annoying when being in crowded
 PL>>> events and having people talking away, and hearing the
 PL>>> screaching of the person they're talking to blaring out of their
 PL>>> cell phone, and the non stop BEEP_BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!

 MvdV>> Welcome to the 20th century. Better get used to it, like cars,
 MvdV>> it is not going away.

 PL> Thought we'd finished out the 20th century :)

Ah, yes. I keep forgetting... ;-)

 PL>>> I would say -this- cuts into profits though as now you have BOTH
 PL>>> sides talking free.

 MvdV>> There is the monthly fee. I bet these customers spend more on
 MvdV>> their phone bill than the perpaid user who only pays for the
 MvdV>> calls and who has no mothly fee.

 PL> Nope.

Over here it is different. Contracts are for those who make lots of calls and
they spend more than the average prepay user.

 PL>>> If inbounds were free though, than many, many more people would
 PL>>> get them.

 MvdV>> People who only use them for incoming calls and hence generate
 MvdV>> no income for the cell phone company.

 PL> There would always be the monthly fee.

See above, that would not work here. Not as long as you can get prepaid with no
montly fee.

 PL>>> What they would lose on a per person basis would more than be
 PL>>> made up for by volume use.  It's a simple concept that has been
 PL>>> applied to many things in the past at great success.

 MvdV>> Sure, but it does not work if you give it away for free.

 PL> Monthly fee.

See above.

 MvdV>> Suppose you were to offer people to take down their trees for free.
 MvdV>> ToTally free, no charges whatsoever. Yes, you would get lots of
 MvdV>> customers....

 PL> Different nut. Can't charge a monthly fee to one time customers.

Right.

 MvdV>> So suppose i had one of these cell phones with free incoming calls.
 MvdV>> What would I do when I wanted to contact you? I would make the
 MvdV>> following deal with you: I call you, let it ring three times and
 MvdV>> hang up. You see the caller id and call me back. No charge for you,
 MvdV>> no charge for me. How is the cell phone company going to make
 MvdV>> money?

 PL> From my experience landline to cell phones don't really work with
 PL> determining the rings based on the tones you hear over the phone,

Yes, I know. It does not even work any more with landline ony services as it
used to do with the old machanical echanges.

 PL> so it would be difficult to send a three ring signal and make sure it
 PL> really didn;t ring only two times, or 4 times.

Doesn't matter. It rings two, three or four times you can see on the caller id
it is me on the cell phone and so you know I want you to call me back.

 PL> In any event, both companies would be paid, as the cell is charging a
 PL> monthly fee, as is the landline.

Over here the cell company would get nothing if it is a prepaid. My estimate is
that 80% of all cell phones here are prepaid.

 PL>>> As to on all the time... everybody I know with a cell phone has
 PL>>> it on all the time... you don't get charged for anybody dialing
 PL>>> your cell number, only if you answer it, so turning it off to
 PL>>> save money doesn't make sense to me.

 MvdV>> Hmmm... good point. However... Dale switches it off...

 PL> Maybe he has his for a different reason... some people only have them
 PL> for the event of an emergency when they are in a location where they
 PL> can't access a phone.

Problem with that is that it is difficult to maintain the thing if you never
use it. It is like flash lights for when the fuse blows. When you need it the
batteries are always empty..


Michiel

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