Hello Dale.

06 May 06 23:18, you wrote to me:

 MVDV>> There is one in Germany too. (2:2454/998) But I think he
 MVDV>> will get very few calls. Making calls *to* a cell phone is
 MVDV>> very expensive.

 DS>   Interesting -- here in USA calls from a land line to a cell phone
 DS> only cost the cell phone.

Yes I know. In the US the cell phone owner pays for the "air
time". In Europe this is different. I'd have thought this would be
widely known by now as it has been discussed many times over in Fido. Ah
well, so much for assumptions of "widely known"....

 DS> The person making the call does not even have any way of knowing that
 DS> the number is a cell phone.   What happens over there?

The long standing principle has always been that as it is the caller who is
in control, it is the caller who should pay all cost.

I understand that in the US people often switch off their cell phones so
that they are not charged for incoming calls. Over here people normally
leave their cell phones on all the time.

Cell phones have distinctive numbers, so they are easily recognised. here
(netherlands) they all start with 06. Contrary to geographical fixed
numbers where the area code may be omitted when calling from within the
same area, the cell phone numbers always have to be dialled as the full ten
digit number. A call to a cell phone number costs five to ten times as much
as calling a fixed number within the country.

The principle of "caller pays all" was abandonEd for cell phones
roaming in another country than their own. In that case the callee pays for
the "international" part of the call. The justification is that
the caller has no way of knowing the callee is not within the confinEs of
his home country. If the EU has its way, this will change and receiving
calls will be free within the EU for EU based cell phones. I wish them
luck..


Michiel

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