TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Young Cell Users Rack Up Debt, One Dime Message at a Time

Re: Young Cell Users Rack Up Debt, One Dime Message at a Time

Rob (rob51166@yahoo.com)
15 Jan 2005 03:09:42 -0800

Dave Garland wrote:

> It was a dark and stormy night when Rob <rob51166@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm still amazed that, in the US, the person being called on a mobile
> phone has to pay for the call if someone calls or texts them.

> The mobile phone companies wanted it this way, for they feared that if
> calls to mobiles were "toll calls" (calls that incurred special
> charges) it would hinder acceptance. For the same reason, they
> resisted having special area codes devoted to mobile phones, as I
> believe is the case in the UK.

Yes, our geographical area codes all begin with 01 or 02, whereas
mobile prefixes and prefixes for personal numbers begin with 07.

Fortunately, the phone package that I'm on means that I don't pay for
*ANY* calls to landlines in the UK, both locally and nationally, but I
do have to pay for calls to mobiles, at a rate of anything up to 19p or
2/minute, and to 'special rate' numbers -- i.e. those having
prefixes beginning with 084 and 087. Usually, however, numbers which
begin with the 084 and 087 prefixes also have geographic numbers
beginning with 01 or 02, so wherever possible I try to dial those so I
won't get charged for the call.

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The same situation works here in the
USA with many '900 numbers'. For example, 900-410-TIME, the talking
clock from the Naval Observatory can be reached on 202-653-1920, and
you don't have to pay the fee for using the 900 version of the number.
Although, the fifty cents charged is not that bad, but many of the 900
numbers used for sex talk get quite expensive. Back in the early
1980's, before cell phones, I found there were a couple of phone sex
operators running their services in the Opera Building on Wacker Drive
in downtown Chicago, and their 900 numbers translated into the 312-372
(FRAnklin) exchange. Naturally, whenever I saw or read messages from
guys who wanted a 'good time' I always referred them to those 312-372
numbers. My philosophy is why should guys have to pay for that stuff.

Now days however, what 900 numbers are still in service all seem to be
routed over T-1 circuits and never even touch the local telco. PAT]

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