16 Sep
2012
16 Sep
'12
12:27 p.m.
On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 06:00:10PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
The whole rest of the world has one mobile phone system, GSM, whereas
the USA has its own weird one and competing telcos in every city and
state meant that phones could not be used from one place to the next
/in the same country./
You guys even pay to /receive/ text messages!
And pay to receive calls. That came as a rude surprise to me a few years
ago when I travelled to the US on business. Got me a local pay-as-you-go
phone and told the wife to call me on that one - would be cheaper than
her calling me on my normal mobile where I would pay the roaming charges.
Little was I aware of the greed of the american telco ... turns out that
they weren't happy with the money they were getting from the caller, they
also charged me something like $2/min or so for the incoming international
call. Which I wasn't used to - in europe (well, .de and .ch definitely, but
I guess the rest is not too dissimiliar on that one ) you only pay for
incoming calls if you're doing international roaming.
At point which I went "fine, if you're _that_ greedy, you are not going to
see another cent" and installed Skype.
Kind regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison