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Do cell phone minutes work differently in India? I was under the impression that I pay for minutes on my phone even when receiving a call. In which case I don
by pmorici 15y ago
Do cell phone minutes work differently in India? I was under the impression that I pay for minutes on my phone even when receiving a call. In which case I don't understand how hanging up after the first ring only to have someone call me back would save anything.
- JamesPeterson 15y agoIn Australia, the idea of paying to receive calls is rediculous. Sure, it's not quite like that on the carrier end. But we consumers only pay when making calls.
- keithpeter 15y agoSame in UK. Was surprised at North American system!
- qw 15y agoSame here in Norway. I think most (all) European countries do the same. The only exception is if you are in another country. In that case the caller only pays as if the call was domestic, and the other has to pay the extra costs. The providers are required to allow you to set a maximum limit on your costs for your phone use outside your country, so you can't be surprised by huge bills.
- deno 15y agoThe limits are regulated by the EU law and include Internet access (data transfer). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission_roaming_regulations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission_roaming_re...
- jeswin 15y agoNope, in India you only pay for the calls you make. I was actually surprised by your system, where you can make someone pay by just calling.
- microarchitect 15y agoIt gets worse. You can even get charged for receiving a text message.
- GigabyteCoin 15y agoAnd you have to pay the cell phone company to block numbers (in Canada).
- rayhano 15y agoReally? Why do North Americans put up with being the only ones in the world to pay for receiving a call???
- kelnos 15y agoWhat recourse do we have? All the NA cell carriers do it, so we can't vote with our feet.
- joezydeco 15y agoBecause North Americans know that when they call somebody they pay a single, predefined rate to call that person: the rate from their location to the destination area code. I don't have to know if I'm calling a mobile or a landline. In fact, a lot of people in the US pay a flat rate to any number in ANY area code in the country. Let me pick a country I call often from my plan's list. Germany. I see two rates for landlines (49 for Telekom and 49115 for civil services), and then six rates for mobiles based on five major carriers and a sixth catch-all that is 5 times more than the others. For kicks, let's look up India. Nice. 18 rates.
- ugh 15y agoThat's … not how it actually works if you are in Germany. Typically you get a flatrate or minutes to landline and two prices for mobile calls: One for calls to your carrier, one for calls to other carriers. You might, for examle, have 120 minutes for calls to people with your carrier and 19 cent/minute to other carriers (and if you go over the 120 minutes). It's actually not so complicated, but it's certainly often a good idea to know which carrier someone is using when you are calling them on the mobile phone. There are, however, also plans that treat all carriers the same.
- mark_up 15y agoThis is an American phenomenon. No where else in the world do you get charged for being the recipient of a call or text message.
- masklinn 15y agoThe US and Canada are the only countries I know of where you pay for spam (as in, pay when receiving a call or a text). There might be others, but in advanced economies (at least) the concept is generally found ludicrous.
- ashishgandhi 15y agoAdd Singapore to the list.
- mark_story 15y agoMobile pricing in Canada is entirely mental. The charges carriers charge here is crazy compared to europe or asia. I had hoped that when we went from 3 to 6+ carriers things would improve, but they haven't. :(
- jellicle 15y agoMobilicity has $12.50/month unlimited calling plans now... I wouldn't say things haven't improved. If you use the upstart carriers you're paying a lot less. What hasn't happened is that Rogers or Bell or Telus have reduced their prices to match. Presumably they are anticipating that at some point they can simply acquire the new carriers and fold them in, like Fido or Virgin Mobile.
- zapf 15y agoThere's also the catch in the US system. When you hear the message saying 'blah blah, leave a message after the tone'. Those seconds are charged to the caller. Add up all those millions of seconds and the networks are rolling. We all know what to do when the person is not there. I don't need to hear a 15 second message telling me yet again what to do.
- cgs 15y agoI think it was David Pogue who wrote something up on this: press "1 * #" in that order, slowly, listening after each press. Depending on the carrier, you'll skip the message eventually.
- andyking 15y agoThis happens in most countries - I think it's Vodafone in the UK which reads out the recipient's phone number very slowly before letting you leave a voicemail. It goes something like "Welcome to the Vodafone voicemail messaging service for 0... 7... 7... 4... 5... 9... [the rest of the number]... the person you have called is unable to answer the phone right now. Please leave a message after the tone." Call me presumptuous, but I know the number of the person I've just called, and don't really need to know how to use an answerphone.