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> in the US the recipient pays extra for their technology I don't understand what do you mean by that. If the sender and recipient are both in US how does this

> in the US the recipient pays extra for their technology I don't understand what do you mean by that. If the sender and recipient are both in US how does this make sense?

toast0 4y ago
The baseline is landline calling, for landline, caller pays (unless it's toll free, or other reversed charging). If you call outside your local area, that's a bigger charge, at least historically. But, cell phones are more expensive to run than landlines (historically, anyway), so the question becomes who pays that extra expense when someone calls a cell phone. You can do caller pays, and then typically have mobile numbers in a separate part of the numbering plan and cell phones receive free incoming calls; or you can do recipient pays and mobile numbers are usually mixed into the numbering plans and cell phones have to pay for incoming calls. As time goes by, costs go down, but caller pays carriers have an income stream from incoming calls that's harder to drive down with competition. Few people are going to switch carriers so it's less expensive for others to call them. Especially if retail plans tend to bundle things. But for recipient pays carriers, there is competition among carriers to make it less expensive for their customers to receive calls, and now most US carriers offer unlimited talk and text on retail plans on most plans, even low cost plans.
- detaro 4y ago
  > now most US carriers offer unlimited talk and text on retail plans on most plans, even low cost plans. But that's not something particularly unique to the US?
  - toast0 4y ago
    No, it's not. But the difference is in the caller pays model, there's no mechanism to reduce the inter-carrier cost. Retail cell phone carriers can hide that cost from their users, because balance of calling usually works out --- most users probably get about as many incoming call minutes from other carriers as outgoing call minutes to other carriers, so revenue from calls roughly matches costs from calls. For voip carriers it's different --- they can't charge other carriers a high rate for incoming calls (because voip is low cost), and they have to pay mobile carriers a high rate to terminate calls. So, retail cell phone users end up in the same boat of low cost "unlimited" calling, but business users have to pay 10-20 cents a minute (depending on the country and the tariffs allowed) High cost is an effective anti-spam technique, but it also raises costs for legitimate business uses.
    - detaro 4y ago
      The mechanism is "regulation". EU intercarrier fees are limited to 0,4 cents per minute (lower for non-mobile networks), so they can not be a big part of the "10-20 cents" carriers might bill their business customers.

> in the US the recipient pays extra for their technology I don't understand what do you mean by that. If the sender and recipient are both in US how does this make sense?

toast0 4y ago

The baseline is landline calling, for landline, caller pays (unless it's toll free, or other reversed charging). If you call outside your local area, that's a bigger charge, at least historically. But, cell phones are more expensive to run than landlines (historically, anyway), so the question becomes who pays that extra expense when someone calls a cell phone. You can do caller pays, and then typically have mobile numbers in a separate part of the numbering plan and cell phones receive free incoming calls; or you can do recipient pays and mobile numbers are usually mixed into the numbering plans and cell phones have to pay for incoming calls. As time goes by, costs go down, but caller pays carriers have an income stream from incoming calls that's harder to drive down with competition. Few people are going to switch carriers so it's less expensive for others to call them. Especially if retail plans tend to bundle things. But for recipient pays carriers, there is competition among carriers to make it less expensive for their customers to receive calls, and now most US carriers offer unlimited talk and text on retail plans on most plans, even low cost plans.

detaro 4y ago
> now most US carriers offer unlimited talk and text on retail plans on most plans, even low cost plans. But that's not something particularly unique to the US?
- toast0 4y ago
  No, it's not. But the difference is in the caller pays model, there's no mechanism to reduce the inter-carrier cost. Retail cell phone carriers can hide that cost from their users, because balance of calling usually works out --- most users probably get about as many incoming call minutes from other carriers as outgoing call minutes to other carriers, so revenue from calls roughly matches costs from calls. For voip carriers it's different --- they can't charge other carriers a high rate for incoming calls (because voip is low cost), and they have to pay mobile carriers a high rate to terminate calls. So, retail cell phone users end up in the same boat of low cost "unlimited" calling, but business users have to pay 10-20 cents a minute (depending on the country and the tariffs allowed) High cost is an effective anti-spam technique, but it also raises costs for legitimate business uses.
  - detaro 4y ago
    The mechanism is "regulation". EU intercarrier fees are limited to 0,4 cents per minute (lower for non-mobile networks), so they can not be a big part of the "10-20 cents" carriers might bill their business customers.