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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 253 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Sky-high travel phone bills nearly bust house payment
Re: Sky-high travel phone bills nearly bust house payment
Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer
Re: AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
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Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:22:45 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Sky-high travel phone bills nearly bust house payment
Message-ID: <p06240814c6d0eaa27d63@[10.0.1.3]>
Sky-high travel phone bills nearly bust house payment
By Christopher Elliott
Tribune Media Services
(Tribune Media Services) -- When it comes to "gotcha" fees, the
cellular phone industry makes travel companies look like rank
amateurs.
Take what happened to P. Morgan Brown when his wife decided to take a
spur-of-the-moment vacation to Indonesia.
Her Verizon bill came to a staggering $8,000. Text-messages home cost
an astounding $2.50 each and the meter was running at an eye-popping
$1.75 a minute for phone calls.
...
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/traveltips/08/28/cell.phone.saving/index.html
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 13:57:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Sky-high travel phone bills nearly bust house payment
Message-ID: <b5de86dc-bb30-4d92-b7eb-eed9e8dca98f@j39g2000yqh.googlegroups.com>
On Sep 12, 11:24 am, Monty Solomon <mo...@roscom.com> wrote:
> Her Verizon bill came to a staggering $8,000. Text-messages home cost
> an astounding $2.50 each and the meter was running at an eye-popping
> $1.75 a minute for phone calls.
Historically, overseas telephone charges were extremely high.
Likewise, cellphone roaming charges outside your home area used to be
high (mine was $1.00/minute). Even after new cables allowed
reductions rates were still high. Given that, I would think a
traveler would check into rates cell and landline rates in advance,
especially from a distant place like Indonesia.
Unfortunately, today it's hard to find out what rates are. It used to
be to simply dial the operator at any time and she'd tell you. But
now with the many phone plans and carriers it's hard to find out.
Many people today have free calling within the continental (48 states)
so rarely have a need to get rates. But there's usually a charge,
possibly a steep one, to call or use a cellphone outside the 48
states.
Calling "customer service" can mean a long wait and inaccurate
infomration from an overseas based automaton. (If anyone knows a good
way to easily find out landline and cell phone special rates please
share it with us.)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:19:21 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Dr. James Marsters, TTY deaf service developer
Message-ID: <6d1a5050-0fc7-4e94-baf0-87147b7910df@s39g2000yqj.googlegroups.com>
On Sep 12, 12:56 am, David Clayton <dcs...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
> And that sort of behaviour - replicated by many controlling telco's
> all around the place - ultimately led to their demise as it just
> highlighted to everyone that they were holding things back for their
> own interests.
This is not true.
Please note my recent post in this thread (9/11-2:19 pm).
> It's amazing the resentment that can build up in
> people/business/governments when some tech company tells them that
> they must do things their way or take a hike - and as soon as an
> opportunity arises to weaken that sort of power it usually happens in
> a manner way out of magnitude to what would have been necessary, and
> then most people sit back and say that they deserved it......
I would suggest your statement is inaccurate or a gross
[over]simplification.
In the U.S. the power companies tell residential and small business
customers they MUST use [the] 110 or 220 [volt] 60 Hz power that they
supply. If that's not acceptable, it's up to the customer to buy and
install power conversion devices. Yet, no one seems to mind that.
When I was [a] kid I used to experiment with electricity, using a
No. 6 dry cell as a power supply (1.5 V DC). It never occured to me
or my parents to expect the power company to supply me with such
current so I wouldn't have to buy batteries. Nor when I got older and
experimented with phones, did I expect the power company to provide me
with smooth 24 V DC for my switchboard. (The rectifiers in toy train
transformers aren't very good for phone service.)
Our municipal sewer authority tells us things we may not flush down
the sink or toilet. They go into businesses and inspect to ensure
there is a grease trap so no cooking grease gets into the system.
Yet, no one seems to mind.
Nobody likes getting a speeding ticket. Yet the townsfolk regularly
come out to town council and demand the police be ever more aggressive
in citing speeders going through twon.
> Has anyone made a list of classic "Shot themselves in the foot"
> behaviour of Telco/IT companies and the ultimate consequences?
> I imagine it could be quite a long list by now.
I would suggest that such issues are not black and white, and most
"resentments" fail to stand up to a close scrutiny of all the facts.
(Again, see my above post about many business restrictions imposed on
the Bell System and IBM; restrictions not imposed on their
competitors).
The fact is that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but consumers
do want the cheapest yet fanciest lunch possible. Something has gotta
give.
In public service, officials who prepare budgets quickly learn there
is a big gap between what citizens are willing to pay and what
services they expect. That gap leads to "resentments". Sadly, far
too often good leaders have been voted out of office because of
"resentments", but they were not at all justified by the facts.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:05:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joseph Singer <joeofseattle@yahoo.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
Message-ID: <705003.86049.qm@web52703.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:29:02 -0400 tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> wrote:
> Monty Solomon wrote:
>> AT&T Relents, Drops Paging Instructions from Voicemail
>
> Now if T-Mobile will back down from their newly instituted fee of
> $1.50/month for mailing out our monthly paper billing statements,
> I'll really start to believe in consumer power :-) .
You need to keep up :)
http://tmotoday.com/blogs/william/09/11/2009/t-mobile-backs-down-paper-billing-charge
------------------------------
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End of The Telecom digest (4 messages)
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