8 ms·

Perhaps it's different in the US. The terms in their mobile phone contracts do seem to be from another world (pay for reciving SMSs and calls? How is that even

by m_eiman 17y ago

Perhaps it's different in the US. The terms in their mobile phone contracts do seem to be from another world (pay for reciving SMSs and calls? How is that even legal?).

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
I think all the carriers charge for incoming data in the US (voice, SMS or otherwise)
- sp332 17y ago
  US Cellular just announced a plan with free incoming voice, SMS and MMS. Heard it on the radio this morning. Edit: Found it online - requires flash to see the ad http://www.uscellular.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/uscellular.html http://www.uscellular.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/usce...
- pavlov 17y ago
  Why do American consumers put up with that? (It's not like that anywhere else in the world, AFAIK.) If you have a landline phone and it rings, you don't expect to be paying the bill... How did it happen that mobile phones got treated differently and nobody raised a stink about this rip-off?
  - Luc 17y ago
    From talking to some Americans about it, they seem to think their system is actually better - mainly based on a misunderstanding of how it works in the rest of the world (their point was that if you have a French mobile phone, and you call another French mobile phone that unbeknown to you is roaming in Australia, you'd have to pay through the nose. Of course that's not how it works - you just pay for a local French connection and the roamer picks up the difference).
  - mosburger 17y ago
    You're absolutely correct. I used to work in the Mobile industry in the U.S. FWIW, here's the sordid history behind the craziness - it wasn't merely to rip the consumer off initially. It might help to imagine that all of this is taking place about 15 years ago: Traditionally, toll charges (a surcharge) can be assessed to the calling party in the U.S. based mostly on area code (a.k.a. the NPA, the first three digits of the phone number), which designates a geographic region of the country. Thus, the caller knows how much toll he/she will be charged based on the phone number. I live in Maine, which is in the northeastern part of the U.S., with a 207 area code. If I call a number with a 310 area code (mobile, landline, it doesn't matter), I know that's in Los Angeles, and I can expect to be assessed toll charges based on the fact that it is so far away. Let's say I'm a mobile subscriber living in Maine, thus my mobile number will start with Maine's area code (207). Let's say my mom, who also lives in Maine, gives me a call. I happen to be roaming in Los Angeles. When mom calls my mobile number, that call is routed to my home switch (a.k.a. the HLR). which then forwards the call using a technique called "call delivery," to a temporary number (called a TLDN) that was assigned to me by the visiting switch (the VLR), when I arrived in L.A. My home switch knows my temporary number because it was transmitted to it when I arrived in L.A., so it's no biggie for it to just forward the call. Now - who should pay the toll on the "leg" of the call between Maine and L.A.? My mom didn't know I was in California, so is it fair to hit her with toll charges because she had no idea she was calling all the way across the country. Naturally, it makes more sense to hit the receiving end with the toll charges. In addition to toll, we used to have a myriad of mobile network providers in the U.S., and they had varying roaming agreements which charged the home carrier different airtime rates based on the nature of the agreement between the carriers. Again, when I was in L.A., it probably cost my home carrier in Maine a lot more because the L.A. carrier would charge the Maine carrier an arm and a leg to host my call. Who is responsible for this increase in charges? There was no technical mechanism to pass it on to my mom, and it probably wouldn't be fair to sock her with it anyway, so it was charged to me, the recipient. Now, with the advent of national plans with thousands of minutes, and with carriers consolidated down to a few national networks, and very low network costs, a lot of this doesn't make sense anymore. And some carriers (I saw that someone mentioned U.S. Cellular) are coming to their wits and abandoning this tradition. But getting huge, stodgy networks to change their ways and drop a cash cow for the hell of it when they have a virtual monopoly won't happen overnight. TL;DR - it's a holdover from the early days when roaming cost more, and it wasn't fair to hit the calling party with surprise charges. It probably shouldn't be that way any more.
  - eli 17y ago
    Many other countries also came later to the cell phone game and thus leapfrogged the US in terms of infrastructure.
    - m_eiman 17y ago
      Not that the infrastructure has anything to do with the pricing policies, of course. It's still no excuse; here in Sweden we're currently upgrading the third generation of our cell phone infrastructure, and besides being able to re-use some of the older cell tower locations, it's been rebuilt from the bottom up at least once since the nineties. US operators should be able to the same thing, and it should be even easier for them with a bigger market - Sweden has only nine million citizens.
Timothee 17y ago
One thing to remember though when considering that we pay for incoming calls in the US is that calling a landline or a cell phone from a landline cost the same. In France, (at least 5 years ago) there used to be a big difference and calling a cell phone was a lot more expensive... (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777512 for more details and why it's even more significant in the US) Also, for a similar price, the plans have a lot more minutes. (again, if it hasn't changed dramatically in recent years)

by m_eiman 17y ago

Perhaps it's different in the US. The terms in their mobile phone contracts do seem to be from another world (pay for reciving SMSs and calls? How is that even legal?).

nazgulnarsil 17y ago

I think all the carriers charge for incoming data in the US (voice, SMS or otherwise)

sp332 17y ago
US Cellular just announced a plan with free incoming voice, SMS and MMS. Heard it on the radio this morning. Edit: Found it online - requires flash to see the ad http://www.uscellular.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/uscellular.html http://www.uscellular.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/usce...
pavlov 17y ago
Why do American consumers put up with that? (It's not like that anywhere else in the world, AFAIK.) If you have a landline phone and it rings, you don't expect to be paying the bill... How did it happen that mobile phones got treated differently and nobody raised a stink about this rip-off?
- Luc 17y ago
  From talking to some Americans about it, they seem to think their system is actually better - mainly based on a misunderstanding of how it works in the rest of the world (their point was that if you have a French mobile phone, and you call another French mobile phone that unbeknown to you is roaming in Australia, you'd have to pay through the nose. Of course that's not how it works - you just pay for a local French connection and the roamer picks up the difference).
- mosburger 17y ago
  You're absolutely correct. I used to work in the Mobile industry in the U.S. FWIW, here's the sordid history behind the craziness - it wasn't merely to rip the consumer off initially. It might help to imagine that all of this is taking place about 15 years ago: Traditionally, toll charges (a surcharge) can be assessed to the calling party in the U.S. based mostly on area code (a.k.a. the NPA, the first three digits of the phone number), which designates a geographic region of the country. Thus, the caller knows how much toll he/she will be charged based on the phone number. I live in Maine, which is in the northeastern part of the U.S., with a 207 area code. If I call a number with a 310 area code (mobile, landline, it doesn't matter), I know that's in Los Angeles, and I can expect to be assessed toll charges based on the fact that it is so far away. Let's say I'm a mobile subscriber living in Maine, thus my mobile number will start with Maine's area code (207). Let's say my mom, who also lives in Maine, gives me a call. I happen to be roaming in Los Angeles. When mom calls my mobile number, that call is routed to my home switch (a.k.a. the HLR). which then forwards the call using a technique called "call delivery," to a temporary number (called a TLDN) that was assigned to me by the visiting switch (the VLR), when I arrived in L.A. My home switch knows my temporary number because it was transmitted to it when I arrived in L.A., so it's no biggie for it to just forward the call. Now - who should pay the toll on the "leg" of the call between Maine and L.A.? My mom didn't know I was in California, so is it fair to hit her with toll charges because she had no idea she was calling all the way across the country. Naturally, it makes more sense to hit the receiving end with the toll charges. In addition to toll, we used to have a myriad of mobile network providers in the U.S., and they had varying roaming agreements which charged the home carrier different airtime rates based on the nature of the agreement between the carriers. Again, when I was in L.A., it probably cost my home carrier in Maine a lot more because the L.A. carrier would charge the Maine carrier an arm and a leg to host my call. Who is responsible for this increase in charges? There was no technical mechanism to pass it on to my mom, and it probably wouldn't be fair to sock her with it anyway, so it was charged to me, the recipient. Now, with the advent of national plans with thousands of minutes, and with carriers consolidated down to a few national networks, and very low network costs, a lot of this doesn't make sense anymore. And some carriers (I saw that someone mentioned U.S. Cellular) are coming to their wits and abandoning this tradition. But getting huge, stodgy networks to change their ways and drop a cash cow for the hell of it when they have a virtual monopoly won't happen overnight. TL;DR - it's a holdover from the early days when roaming cost more, and it wasn't fair to hit the calling party with surprise charges. It probably shouldn't be that way any more.
- eli 17y ago
  Many other countries also came later to the cell phone game and thus leapfrogged the US in terms of infrastructure.
  - m_eiman 17y ago
    Not that the infrastructure has anything to do with the pricing policies, of course. It's still no excuse; here in Sweden we're currently upgrading the third generation of our cell phone infrastructure, and besides being able to re-use some of the older cell tower locations, it's been rebuilt from the bottom up at least once since the nineties. US operators should be able to the same thing, and it should be even easier for them with a bigger market - Sweden has only nine million citizens.

Timothee 17y ago

One thing to remember though when considering that we pay for incoming calls in the US is that calling a landline or a cell phone from a landline cost the same. In France, (at least 5 years ago) there used to be a big difference and calling a cell phone was a lot more expensive... (see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=777512 for more details and why it's even more significant in the US) Also, for a similar price, the plans have a lot more minutes. (again, if it hasn't changed dramatically in recent years)