For POTS, only the caller gets charged. If you are using a cell phone or a satellite phone, you pay for your connection to that network, whether or not you sta

For POTS, only the caller gets charged. If you are using a cell phone or a satellite phone, you pay for your connection to that network, whether or not you started the call. You certainly don't make it so that grandma using her POTS has to pay for the guy with the more expensive connection. That is viewed as extremely unfair. OTOH, using the cell network generally has free calling to anywhere in the lower 48. It's not the old physical wires that are the expensive part, it's maintaining and upgrading all the cell towers, and so people pay for that usage. Once you've paid to connect your call to the wired network, you can do whatever within very wide geographic borders.