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It still doesn't make sense. They should have charged your Mom for the local call and charged you for the leg between Maine and LA. In India, in earlier days,

It still doesn't make sense. They should have charged your Mom for the local call and charged you for the leg between Maine and LA. In India, in earlier days, each cellphone number will have a 'home area' generally conformed to the state you live in. If you are in the state where you bought the phone, you don't pay any incoming charges (voice/sms). Anyone else calling you will pay charges to connect to your number. If you are going out of your home state, you have to 'activate' roaming (it could be automatic if you wish to) and now you pay the 'roaming' charges from your home state to the current place where you are roaming. Above is how it used to work when cell phones had just arrived. These days you pay a flat fee if you are calling another mobile from your mobile. Incoming call is free for the other party. Things do change if you call a landline phone from mobile (you pay higher rate because landline is mostly government owned in India).

mosburger 17y ago
I agree that it still doesn't make a lot of sense, especially today. But consider 1.) Even if the carrier only charged me for the second leg, it would still be a charge for an incoming call, which is what the OP was complaining about. 2.) This was, as you point out, back when cellular was just starting out, and roaming was a lot more common, even within your own theoretical "home area," because coverage was so poor, and because we had a decent amount of competition back in the early days - every area in the U.S. initially had two carriers (called an "A side" and "B side"), and they all used an analog technology called AMPS which was generally configured such that you roamed on each others' networks quite frequently. 3.) My last point about big stodgy carriers unwilling to give up a money maker still stands. :)
aaronkaplan 17y ago
They should have charged your Mom for the local call and charged you for the leg between Maine and LA. That is how it works. In the US local calls are free, and his mom pays all $0 of it.

mosburger 17y ago

I agree that it still doesn't make a lot of sense, especially today. But consider 1.) Even if the carrier only charged me for the second leg, it would still be a charge for an incoming call, which is what the OP was complaining about. 2.) This was, as you point out, back when cellular was just starting out, and roaming was a lot more common, even within your own theoretical "home area," because coverage was so poor, and because we had a decent amount of competition back in the early days - every area in the U.S. initially had two carriers (called an "A side" and "B side"), and they all used an analog technology called AMPS which was generally configured such that you roamed on each others' networks quite frequently. 3.) My last point about big stodgy carriers unwilling to give up a money maker still stands. :)

aaronkaplan 17y ago

They should have charged your Mom for the local call and charged you for the leg between Maine and LA. That is how it works. In the US local calls are free, and his mom pays all $0 of it.