Brad Ideas - Free incoming vs. pools of cellular minutes - Comments

Yes, Canadian plans are sucking

brad — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:07:39 -0700

And not improving. Though they do offer plans with free incoming, which unlike overseas plans are free to both the caller and the phone owner. People with those plans often call people and ask them to call the cell phone back. There are even services that will call you back with dialtone if you want to cheat.

U.S. plans on the other hand are getting better and there’s a fair bit of MVNO competition. There’s fully unlimited plans without roaming for $35 or so, and nationwide unlimited plans, including text and data for $99.

I don’t need unlimited. Sprint’s $30 plan with unlimited data, text, picture messaging, nights, weekends, in-network and 500 daytime out-of-network minutes is all I need. I don’t know anywhere that you can get something like that.

In the USA it’s getting pretty common for people to not have a landline now. I know people do that in Europe too but that must be very annoying to those who want to call them.

Well it doesn't matter

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:35:21 -0700

Well it doesn't matter anymore, looks like unlimited nation wide calling has come to Australia with the new timeless plans.

Truly unlimited calling, with no weasly words in the fine print. They are of course only for personal use, but there's no per minute limit even in the fine print.

Other then the US there is no other country in the world with this plan. Canada which uses a US based model for calling, is not even close to having such a plan. The best they can do is unlimited incoming, or unlimited evenings and weekends (only for local calls) and they have horrible roaming charges. Even driving 10-15 kms outside your "local" area can increase your incoming/outgoing rate tremendously.

Personally having gone to Canada for holiday and being on prepaid you get a lot less for the same amount of money. You are simply too afraid for anyone to call you because you are worried you will run out of credit, especially if they talk for a long period of time. In Australia the situation is reversed, the person who does the calling probably is worried about talking too long.

I don't think so

brad — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:32:49 -0700

The two main carriers in the USA for GSM don’t as far as I know. (Though they do offer plans with unlimited nights and weekends, both incoming and outgoing.) Perhaps some of the smaller carriers do. As you know, that’s not the way of plans in North America.

Note that UK plans are not “free incoming” they are “caller pays a high fee for your incoming calls.”

US plans are “caller does not pay” (cell lines look like landlines.) instead the cell owner pays. Several of the carriers offer free incoming calls to their monthly customers who buy such a plan, but it means you miss out on some other feature that other plans get.

The incoming calls will cost the standard minute rate, which is down to 10 cents/minute on t-mobile if you buy a larger card.

Fido in Canada does offer free incoming calls on a plan that has a $1/day cost for doing so. I don’t think their prepaid roams into the USA.

how do u get prepay in states to recieve free incoming.??

moe — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:39:55 -0700

all incoming calls r free in uk. mobiles or landline. my girlfriend left for states for a week and she cant find any prepay sim to use with her gsm phone. everytime i call her on her orange uk sim, she is charge massively for recieving calls abroad. Is there any prepay sim in states that does not charge for incoming calls and does not tie u into a contract..??? any help will b appreciated....

The US model isn't nuts

brad — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:35:54 -0800

For several reasons. First of all, almost everybody buys a big bucket of minutes and thus they don't really think of it as "both parties paying for the call." And almost all carriers here offer the ability to not have either party pay on a call to another customer of the same mobile company.

The Euro model with a mobile to mobile call (without in-network benefits) has the caller paying *double*. They pay for their own airtime, and the airtime of the called party, which they didn't get to negotiate the price of. The US model has each party pay for their airtime, which they negotiated the price of. I never go over my minutes, so it's effectively nothing. (I have a plan that gives 500 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited SMS, unlimited picture messaging, unlimited domestic long distance and unlimited minutes nights/weekends and unlimited minutes to other customers of Sprint all for $30/month. Does that seem nuts to you? Is any European or other plan close to that?)

In the USA/Canada, mobile numbers can't be told from landlines. They are all the same and so all costs are put on the party that knows they have asked for something special. If I elect to use a mobile with airtime costs, I pay those airtime costs, including when people call me. That's because I'm the one who gave out a mobile number, they have no idea that's what I am on. If I call long distance, I pay the costs, though of course on most mobile plans and many home plans, that no longer exists.

In Oz, the mobile carrier

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:44:03 -0800

In Oz, the mobile carrier doesn't influence the cost of the call from a landline unless it is the same carrier as the landline (therefore cheaper).

charging for incoming and outgoing is a bit odd, I have free unlimited incoming and I pay 30c/minute up to $99 a month then I stop paying (up to $500) - that works out to be 1700 odd minutes and yes I do use that up cos I don't use a landline.

It's different as a landline to mobile caller because you know that the call will be expensive if you wish to talk for a long time - most of us just use a mobile to call a mobile and get our mates to use the same carrier for free calls to each other.

I think it's prolly easier that way out of courtesy, I don't have to explain to the caller that they should shut up cos I'm outta minutes...

The reason the landline to

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:30:36 -0800

The reason the landline to mobile/mobile carrier to another mobile carrier cost is high is because of the fee charged by the receiving carrier - so instead of mobile user paying the incoming cost, it's billed by the users telco to the callers telco which is in turn billed by the set rate of the landline (plan). At the moment it's something like 20c/min so they just keep passing on the cost to the caller; that's why call cards aren't much cheaper.

The European/Oz model drives

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:24:38 -0800

The European/Oz model drives competition because the subscriber shops for a plan that has the cheapest cost for their call patterns. The US model is nuts (imho), why should both parties pay for the call? Sure the Oz call rate could drop more but the rage at the moment is 'cap' plans in which you pay x amount for more than x amount of credit (e.g. 30 = 120), they could instead just drop the call rate by 75%

Merits

brad — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 12:16:29 -0700

The Canadian telcos, since there are only 3, are still gouging customers far more than the US. Long distance became effectively free years ago (for both markets) but the carriers rake you over teh coals for it. In the USA, almost all cellular plans cover the whole country, there is no long distance vs. local distinction. (In fact, almost all plans also have no roaming at least on that carrier's network.)

However, the main point about which is *better* is not about the particular price plans of each. The main thing that is better about the USA/Canada model is the way it drives competition. (That of course requires there be adequate competition, which there is not in Canada.)

In the European model, the person paying for the airtime (the caller) has no ability to negotiate the price or choose the carrier based on the price. As such there are very few pressures to drive down the price, or in fact do anything for the payer.

In the North American model, the person paying for the airtime (the phone owner) is the person who chooses the carrier. There is strong pressure to give the customer the best rates.

Now it's true that cell phone competition is far from ideal in most locations. It's highly regulated, and there may be no more than 2 to 4 competitors. So we don't get a truly optimal result. However, the more competition you have, the better the North American model will do. It is unquestionably superior from that standpoint.

What makes this particularly clear is that you can get "free incoming" from several companies here. And there would be nothing stopping cell companies from offering "900 number incoming" where the caller pays 25 cents/minute to call you -- but nobody offers it because very few people would want it. (Mostly people who want to actively discourage callers.)

Well I guess it depends on

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 08:12:42 -0700

Well I guess it depends on your opinion - unlimted "calls" after 7pm (if anything like Canada) is pretty useless to me, unless you only call someone close by in your "local" calling area.

With the Get Connected plans (or the Business Mobile Select plans - $55 unlimited calling/incoming/texting (no "call connection" charge) you can call any landline in the country, so if you make long calls and don't just call people in your "local" area then this is much better value then the plans I've seen in Canada and in some ways better for me than the plans in the US.

I have to admit that the Mobile to Mobile calls in the US are pretty good, unless it's only limited to a certain geographical area?

No you got it wrong, I was worried about People calling me in Canada because I was paying 0.35c/minute when they called! Why would I care how much they paid? Here since all incoming (even long distance) is free I have no qualms in talking as long as needed. On the other hand in Canada my meagre $20 recharge barely lasted a week even though I had unlimited evenings starting at 6pm for only $1/day. The reason is because the incoming calls are charged that $20 credit (+$3 taxes) is not the same as an equivalent $30 credit in Australia. Overall you get more for your money in Oz (well subjectively for me). But yes it does suck in the sense that you are either stuck with certain networks, or high per minute rates when calling from landline - to mobile.

I suspect that there are merits to each system, and no one system is clearly superior to the other. Both have their advantages, and I doubt that Australia will ever adopt the US system, or vice-versa. There is hope in the sense that the ACCC is forcing Telstra to drive down their wholesale price so that calls will be cheaper for everyone. Take a look at some of the Asian countries like HK where the system is similar to Oz (free incoming calls) but yet the cost per minute to call a mobile there is not very high (as low as $0.04cents/min with some voip providers) and the reason is because there is true competition there. So provided that there is competition the Australia/Europe system can be as cheap as the US one.

Best ever

brad — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:33:06 -0700

I can't see how this Get Connected is the best plan ever. There are unlimited incoming plans here in the USA if you want them, and some in Canada, but Canada's plans are not nearly as good. Lots more regulation in Canada, and now only 3 competitors (only one GSM company though it uses two brands.)

My USA plan is $30/month for 500 voice, unlimited data, unlimited text and picture messaging. Unlimited weekends and after 7pm. Unlimited free calls to other Sprint users too. T-mobile here and Rogers in Canada also now offer free calls to 5 numbers (any carrier) you pick. Sprint offers unlimited calls to your home landline for $5 per month. In the USA, all major plans include no charge for U.S. long distance. Alternately there are local competitors that offer for $40/month completely unlimited calling, day or night, no charges,
no long distance within the USA. (But charges for roaming. The other plans I describe allow you to roam nationwide.)

They still all suck if you go to another country though, and of course CMDA phones only work in a few other countries anyway.

And people who call you aren't seeing the clock ticking. That's why you were so worried about people yapping when calling you. They weren't paying 20 cents a minute to do so.

Having lived in both

OzCanuk — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 04:12:46 -0700

Having lived in both countries (Can/Oz) I guess I can weigh in on the merits of both systems:

1) You can have unlimited mobile calling in Oz, especially through voip: www.gotalk.com.au - or search on google for go talk unlimited voip calling plan (it's technically 1000 minutes, but nearly unlimited)

2) I bought PAYG in Canada as well as PAYG in Oz. $20 of PAYG seemed to barely last me a week because of the fact that the incoming calls were charged, I found myself trying to get the other person to say what they wanted as quick as possible so I could cut my call costs down, that's despite the fact that the PAYG plan including unlimited evenings and weekends for only $1/day! In Oz on the other hand, with a $30 "cap" plan my credit lasts for the entire month, even when people call me for hours/or I call them. I find myself a few hour long conversations during the month and I'm not afraid when people call me as I know the call will be free to me. You are right however, I get fewer people calling me from a landline, with the majority of calls being from other people's mobiles.

3) There is a new plan from Telstra - called the Get connected plan which is probalby the best plan I have ever seen (North America included) Basically the details are $40/month, no call credit though, but 1) unlimited incoming minutes 2) only 0.35c/call (no per minute charges) to any landline in Australia 0.35c to any Telstra mobile in the country, and .36c/minute to any other mobile. However very few people have even heard of this plan, so my guess is that North American style pricing is not that popular in Oz.

4) People in Oz tend to be more mobile than North Americans. I have noticed quite a few people making calls to other states even countries on their mobile, more frequently than in Canada anyway. I knew of almost no one who would dream of making a long distance call on their mobile. Most would turn of their mobile during the day, and just using the unlimited evenings/weekends. So in that sense the "pool" of minutes in a few of the mobile plans in Canada are for local minutes only - long distance is still billed seperately, and usually at pretty high rates. Though I guess that's changing as well. Also in plans where incoming is free, that is only for local calls, again if someone from the US where to call you, that would not count.

5) Texting is more popular by far in Oz than in Canada. Probalby because of the relatively low call rates to Mobiles in Can vs. Oz. However now that I've gotten used to the texting I find it does have it's advantages. For example if you're on a bus it's pretty rude to be having a conversation on your cell, and that's the perfect occasion to be texting back and forth with your friends. During the day time, being in an office/school etc. texting is also easier as it disrupts less people.

So my final point is that each system is really designed for the use of the people in that country.

No, that makes sense

brad — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:12:21 -0700

If I am one one cell phone and call another cell phone, there are two "airtimes" so of course both pay. It is only an artifact of marketing that some cell companies make that call free or cheaper than landline calls. Text messaging pricing is indeed insane in both the USA and Europe. Though I get free unlimited data and free unlimited text and 500 mins airtime for $30/month, which seems to beat just about all the plans out there.

You can get free incoming minutes (free to both caller and recipient) from several cell companies here, but of course it is not "free" as the plans are not as good in other departments, but cheaper than many overseas plans.

But I still believe the right approach is to make it "a phone is a phone" to the caller. The caller should not have to pay a different amount to call me because I happen to be on my cell at one moment and my landline the next. Especially not the ridiculous 20 cent/minute charges so many european mobile carriers charge. Only when "a phone is a phone" do you get the ability to do interesting innovations without having to worry about accounting. Today, if you want to build phone apps, you can make them free or flat rate -- except calling cell phones in Europe and similar places. In N.A. you can just make the apps free or flat rate when domestic.

NA plans are not superior

Navin — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:37:32 -0700

In the US, if you call a cellphone, you have to pay for airtime, and so does the person you called! That's crazy! Both parties get screwed! AllTel (prepaid) is charging 10 cents for receiving a text message! That's nuts! I have no control over text messages I receive!

Basically, we need a plan that has the following:

Incoming: FREE always (unless roaming)
Outgoing: one fixed cost for all land lines and perhaps another fixed cost for cell phones (any carrier). This keeps things simpler.
SMS: Incoming must be FREE; outgoing is naturally charged.

One more thing, why should I pay $60 every month for 1000-something minutes? I should pay only minimal service charge every month and pay only for the minutes I use. I never use my entire 1000 minutes, and so I am losing a lot of money (per year). That's another "BS" we have to put up with in America. All plans are basically "prepaid" in nature. The only difference is whether you are stuck with a service agreement for 24-months ("regular"), or not ("prepaid").

Of course, Americans always believe their system is fair/superior, so it is unlikely it will change any time soon.

How much it costs

brad — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:27:12 -0800

Is something you negotiate with your cell company. In the USA, because people can negotiate the cost of incoming calls with their cell company, the cost is vastly lower. There are some plans that have incoming calls be free (to both parties.) Almost all plans sold today include all weekend and evening minutes (incoming and outgoing) free.

There have been some plans that give you the first minute of incoming calls free, so you can hang up if you aren’t inclined to talk and pay airtime.

However, few care about this because most people have a plan where minutes (incoming and outgoing) come in a big bundle which they rarely exceed. In the bundles you pay something like another $10 for 400 more minutes (TMobile) That’s 2.5 cents/minute. Sprint charges 5 cents per minute for going over your bundle, which is the fairest.

Do you understand now what competition in price does? The “free” minutes on Euro cell phones are costing the caller 20 to 25 cents per minute, often more. I guess if you want your callers to hate calling you that’s a good idea.

Now as it turns out you can try to play the opposite rules in both places. In theory, in the USA, you could get a 900 number charging 25 cents/minute and use that as your cell number, and the money you got would more than pay for your airtime. How many people would call you? Close to zero, because of the way people think.

In Europe, you could buy a landline number and forward it to your mobile, and you would pay the 25 cent/minute cost. Nobody wants to do that either, do they?

I’m surprised there is even debate on this any more.

Free incoming vs. pools of cellular minutes

brad — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 01:53:09 -0700

As noted, in Australia, I picked up a SIM at the airport for my unlocked phone. Australia, like Europe and most other places outside North America, uses a system where incoming calls to cell phones are paid by the caller, and are free to the mobile owner. As you may know, in North America and a small number of other countries, the mobile owner pays for airtime on incoming calls, and they look like ordinary landline calls to the caller.

In fact, in North America, there’s no easy way for an ordinary consumer to even know a number is a mobile, since you can port landline numbers to cell phones. In Australia, cell phones have their own state-code, so you know when you are calling them, and with a bit of memorizing, you also know which mobile company they belong to, which turns out to be important — because many mobile companies offer cheap or free calling between two phones on the same carrier (in both systems.) Some mobile companies have cross deals and offer cheap/free calling to any other mobile phone.

The cost to call these caller-pays phones is quite high, anywhere from 20 to 30 cents per minute. In fact, today, these caller-pays cell phones are the most expensive phones in the developed world to call. From here in California, using VoIP, I can call Australian land lines for 2 cents/minute, while it’s 22 cents/minute to call a mobile.

So which is better? Europeans argued that because incoming calls are free, people were less afraid to give out mobile numbers, and that spurred the faster deployment of cellular. But in the USA and Canada, people buy giant bundles of minutes that have gotten so cheap they tend to not care that much about the cost of the incoming calls or outgoing ones. When you do care, however (especially with some of the high per minute costs) the free-incoming argument is that you should not have to pay for a call you didn’t necessarily choose to have happen.

Since I was just there for a few weeks, I did not buy a plan with tons of minutes. So I definitely noticed my own sense about calling out vs. receiving. Most people don’t seem too bothered by calling a mobile. It depends on how much you notice phone costs. It is useful to know that you are calling a mobile, not simply for cost, but because you want to know if you’re interrupting somebody. However, that stands in the way of highly useful number portability.

(In my expected future where the phone number goes away, number portability becomes less important. Each person’s name/number might have a standard suffix for home, mobile, work, pager, fax etc.)

The arguments are present for both sides, but the big issue I see is that there is no competition in the cost of calls to mobiles. Even though the carriers are happily selling mobile to mobile minutes for near-free, the ability to bill the caller for incoming calls is a cash cow they have no incentive to reduce. As I indicated earlier, there were carriers advertising they would rebate customers some of the money paid in these heavy charges to landline callers. One could imagine a phone that is free, as long as you get enough incoming minutes to pay for your outgoing ones. Hardly fair.

Carriers might, in a more complex regime, be able to charge less to landline callers calling mobiles, but it’s hard to say if this would be a big competitive advantage, so has anybody done it? So what can bring the price down as the cost dwindles the way it has?

If you can’t tell that you’re calling a mobile (as in the USA) then the US model is really the only choice. You don’t want to see yourself dinged high fees for what you thought was a local call. The US model was that since I decided to have an expensive cell phone, the airtime was my problem. This model has lead to lots of competition on pricing for airtime in general. Now monthly plans with less than 300 minutes are rare, and they’re under 10 cents — well under in the larger plans, and often unlimited in off-peak periods.

Which system do you like better?