--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAE00001 Date: 06/04/97 From: SCOTT HOFFMAN Time: 07:53am \/To: SCOTT CURRIER (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: Re: This echo SC> I don't beleive the 1 watt figure on the tdma phone, I've never seen or hea SC> any digital phone rated at anything higher than 600mw. What's the model and SC> make of that phone you're talking about. Maybe that figure is ERP instead of actual power. Ie: Say the CDMA phones antenna has about 2 or 3dB gain to it (as compared to a 0dB isotropic) the 2 or 3dB gain would about double the effectove power. --- GEcho 1.00 * Origin: Brian's World (516)-331-5540 Long Island, NY (1:2619/232) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAE00002 Date: 06/08/97 From: CHARLES HUNTER Time: 11:10pm \/To: GEORGE ERDNER (Read 2 times) Subj: NO: FREE PHONES GE>No one gets a phone at the end of their contract, they get it at the >beginning. A consumer who gets a phone for no cash payment (ie. a >"free" phone) in exchange for signing a contract takes full legal and >equitable title to that phone on day one. It is his property the minute >he walsk out of the store, which means it's up to him to get it repaired >if it breaks or to replace it if stolen. Obviously; but it's also his obligation therefore to pay the terms of the contract or any buy out amount. Charles * 1st 2.00 ~ What is meant to be will always find a way. --- QScan/PCB v1.19b / 01-0671 * Origin: AirPower Information Services 610-259-2193 (1:273/408) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAE00003 Date: 06/09/97 From: LORIN POTTER Time: 06:38pm \/To: ZIGGY MALTER (Read 2 times) Subj: CALLING PARTY PAYS LP>Ziggy, you are close, but think about this. No one installs equipment to LP>handle 100% of traffic during the most extreme busy times. Not cellular, LP>not the phone company, not street and highways. LP> LP>Since most traffic is during the day, you use more expensive equipment LP>to handle the traffic during extreme busy times, so you have to charge LP>more. ZM>Your logic is good, however from what I have been told by all the >providers, these days the equipment and resources cost exactly the same >24 hours per day. Lots of good material there Ziggy. Didn't sound like you knew this as well as you do. I was simply trying to guide an uninformed (Incorrectly). Thanks, Lorin Potter -- SPEED 1.40 #1891: The older I get, the better I was. --- FLAME v1.1 * Origin: Files R Us BBS - Cedar Rapids, Ia. (319-378-8257) (1:283/125) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAE00004 Date: 06/08/97 From: ZIGGY MALTER Time: 12:22pm \/To: GEORGE ERDNER (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: calling party pays Hi George, GE>The price only falls if the supply is expandable. High demand products GE>are manufactured in larger quantity to increase supply relative to GE>demand. Airtime minutes are a finite quanity. There are only so many of GE>them in a day. Sure, I understand, however if more people were encouraged to use the system because of lower rates, then there would be more profit. Read my reply to another person in this echo about the research which found that it would be much more profitable to have free calls all over this continent and charge a nominal rental, as the cost of itemised billing and metering is the greatest expense in modern-day telephony and would be better eliminated. GE>ZM> The only reason for higher prices during the GE>ZM> day for phones is because they can get away with it. GE> GE>Well of course, that's one way of expressing how capitalistic laws of GE>supply and demand work. Any businessman with any degree of sense is GE>going to charge what the market will bear. Phone companies are in GE>business to make profits. It's times like this where I wish I owned a phone company..... :-) GE>Off-peak calls cost less because there isn't enough demand for off-peak GE>airtime to justify a higher price. Raise the price any higher, and GE>people would reduce their use of cell phones during off-peak times, and GE>revenue would decrease. Anytime a business sets prices, it looks for the GE>point on the supply/demand curve where total revenue will be the GE>highest. Of course, however old habits die hard. A lot of the phone company thinking is lagging a bit behind their technology. GE>You need to do some more research into just what capitalism is all GE>about. It is not about companies giving up profits just to be "nice GE>guys". Leo Durocher summed up what happens to "nice guys" very GE>succinctly. GE> GE>The simple fact is that if you want a cell phone that works, there has GE>to be a profitable cellular phone company backing it up. Without GE>profits, there would be no towers, no central switch, and no cellular GE>service. GE> GE>There ain't no such thing as a free lunch! I'm with you all the way there. I've always ben a devout capitalist myself, however the point I make here is that according to recent research done here, phone billing could produce higher profits and cheaper call rates - it's just that the companies won't implement the changes because of their conservatism. An example. My cell provider has a flat call rate across the country. The other two have local and long-distance rates. This is pissing their customers off considerably. My provider is making oodles of money and is very profitable charging flat rates. The difference is in the mindset of the other two providers who will eventually have to change their system. When they do, they will discover that the loss they make on removing long-distance rates will be more than offset by the accounting and billing mechanisms which hav to keep track of the long distance calls. Cheers - Ziggy ___ * UniQWK v4.1 * The Windows Mail Reader --- Xenolink 1.984, XQwk 1.6 [REG 10062] * Origin: Archer BBS 61-293710347 ArcherNet 61-293716018 (3:712/392) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAE00005 Date: 06/08/97 From: ZIGGY MALTER Time: 12:22pm \/To: CARL OWENS (Read 2 times) Subj: Thanks Hi Carl, CO>I understand where you are coming from on this one, however, if you had CO>to give the unit up, you could live without it. It would not be as nice CO>and the companies (phone) would like to have us think it isn't a luxury. CO>The truth is, the cell phone is a luxury. I agree we are better off with CO>a phone than without one. Sure, I lived without it for most of my life, but I know that quite a number of times in recent years the cellphone has really saved my bacon. My car, my watch, my house they are all things I could live without and could be deemed to be luxuries. You could literally call anything which is not directly related to the sustenance of life as being a luxury, but in most modern Western societies, all these things are considered essential to conducting a normal lifestyle. We can all do without things, but why should we if we can afford to have em? Cheers - Ziggy ___ * UniQWK v4.1 * The Windows Mail Reader --- Xenolink 1.984, XQwk 1.6 [REG 10062] * Origin: Archer BBS 61-293710347 www.spin.net.au/~sandra (3:712/392) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAF00000 Date: 06/05/97 From: SCOTT CURRIER Time: 09:10pm \/To: CHARLES HUNTER (Read 2 times) Subj: Thanks -CH> So what you are saying then is that for those who can -CH> afford the cell -CH> phone, it is a neccessity; but for those who are less -CH> fortunate, it is -CH> not a luxury and they should just do without? -CH> Charles It seems to me that noone can say whether a cell phone is a necessity or a luxury for anyone except themselves. To me it's neither a necessity nor a luxury, it's nice to have and I wouldn't be too happy without one but I've lived without one for a good number of years and could do so again. I'd prefer not to though. On a totally unrelated note.... FWIW, Sprint PCS is setting up displays in the Radio Shacks in this market. So, it looks like they're going to be online in the Boston market soon. Will be interesting to see what they come up with for rate plans. --- * Origin: Computer Castle / 20 Lines / Newton, NH / 603-382-0338 (1:324/127) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAF00001 Date: 06/05/97 From: SCOTT CURRIER Time: 09:27pm \/To: SCOTT HOFFMAN (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: Prepaid Cellular -SH> middle of a call and you still end up paying. In addition, -SH> since the -SH> technology is so god damned crappy, and in adition since -SH> the handhelds have -SH> such low power, they cannoot ever get a clear signal, and -SH> thusly must go into -SH> roam mode if you want to make a local call. And of course -SH> that makes the -SH> customer pay an extra 75 cents per minute. (and I'm sure -SH> the cell companies -SH> have no intention of ever fixing the problem because hey, -SH> are they going to -SH> complain about getting an extra 75 cents for roaming -SH> calls?) If you don't have enough power to hit the home system, how are you going to get into a neighboring system? Handheld phones are as convenient as can be, but they're a tradeoff, I'd never have one as my only phone but I like having one to use occasionally when I'm outside the car. Anyone using one inside the car deserves any noise and dropped calls that they get. -SH> Then we have the issue of privacy and pure deception by the -SH> CTIA who misleads -SH> congress with blatent lies as well as misleads the public -SH> into a fals e sense -SH> of security while scapegoating the estinmated 30 million -SH> radio hobbyists in -SH> this country and taking away their right to listen to -SH> ceartain frequencies (a -SH> la the ECPA).. The CTIA promised digital technology 10 -SH> years ago when they -SH> went before congress, and that promise has still went -SH> unfulffilled because -SH> theyd rather screw everyone else in the country and take -SH> away scanners rights -SH> to listen rather than installing some equipment cause you -SH> know... that would -SH> cost them money, god forbid that.. You hit that one right on the money, even simple speech inversion would stop the casual listener. I don't understand how the cellular carriers could get away with that, it's similar to a bank that leaves your money out on the sidewalk for anyone to take or a company that does not protect any information that it has on you. Oh well, digital is hear, it will catch on, and analog will be a thing of the past, (in 10 or 20 years) so it won't matter anymore. --- * Origin: Computer Castle / 20 Lines / Newton, NH / 603-382-0338 (1:324/127) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAF00002 Date: 06/05/97 From: SCOTT CURRIER Time: 09:06pm \/To: ZIGGY MALTER (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: calling party pays -ZM> In every other business I know of, when a product is more -ZM> in demand, -ZM> generally the price falls. The only reason for higher -ZM> prices during the -ZM> day for phones is because they can get away with it. It's -ZM> not like the -ZM> old days when more telephone operators had to be employed -ZM> daytime to -ZM> cope with the volume. Nowadays it costs the same to operate -ZM> 24 hours a -ZM> day for the providers because it is fully automated. In -ZM> fact, logically -ZM> off-peak calls should cost more because less revenue is -ZM> generated in -ZM> those times but the same amount of personnel are employed -ZM> by the -ZM> providers and cost the same. -ZM> This is not capitalism, this is rip-off-ism..... As I said in the other messages, the issue that you're ignoring is system capacity. However, quite a few carriers do have rate plans where the same rate is charged peak and offpeak, the new digital rates with BANM are that way. I'd rather have the lower rate at nite. On another note, FWIW, Bell Atlantic now offers unlimited offpeak on any rate plan (except 7 states and mobile reach) for an extra $9.99 a month. This is in the RBS(Boston) market. That is a nice touch, the free calling starts at 8pm and there is no land line charge in this market so the calls are free. --- * Origin: Computer Castle / 20 Lines / Newton, NH / 603-382-0338 (1:324/127) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAF00003 Date: 06/05/97 From: SCOTT CURRIER Time: 09:20pm \/To: SCOTT HOFFMAN (Read 2 times) Subj: Re: Prepaid Cellular -SH> Theirs a fine line between good business practices and -SH> sleazy. History has -SH> shown just how sleazy and despicable all monopolies. We've Two systems in each market, in my opinion, is not enough for true competition. The carriers in a lot of ways still act like monopolies. -SH> gone through this -SH> for the past century and we still havent learned from our -SH> mistakes because the -SH> cell industry is allowed to do the exact same things which -SH> the wireline -SH> companies have been forbidden to do after long debate. -SH> Just as an example of -SH> the sleaziest practice is their audacity to make people pay -SH> extra or even to -SH> outright forbid a second phone with the same phone number. -SH> This utter crap was -SH> proved to be so utterly absurd by the citizens, that the -SH> wireline companies -SH> were forced to stop that practice about 2 decades ago due -SH> to public pressure. I can understand the cellular companies not wanting the esn numbers changed, the security of AMPS is based on the ESN. The solution would be to have their switches recognize at least two esn's as valid so people who wanted an additional phone could do it, preferably at no extra charge. The downside for the cellular carriers is that they love people who pay their 20 bucks a month and who never use the phone, except in emergencies. If they allowed more than one esn at no charge they would lose sales as people would put a phone in each car. -SH> Then we could get into discussing how crappy analog cell -SH> technology is, and -SH> how (in the New York area anyway) people constantly get -SH> hung up on in the -SH> middle of a call and you still end up paying. In addition, You guys have a lousy system, I'm as picky as can be and use thousands of minutes a month. My 6 month average with cellular one Boston was 4600 and some change minutes. Analog works extremely well up here. Very little noise, almost no dropped calls, and excellent audio quality. We took one call two hours up into Maine, started in Portsmouth N.H. and continued up to Portland then to Oxford, two hours later we were still connected when they arrived in Oxford. Another call went from Somersworth N.H. and continued on down to Mansfield Mass, that call was about 3 hours and the call started on Vanguard cellular, continued on Cell One Boston, and finally ended on Southern New England Telephone. That was a mobile to mobile call. We have scores and scores of other calls that we've made on weekends while we were out that have lasted hours, many of them mobile to mobile. The advanced mobile phone system is remarkably robust, has great sound quality and is a pleasure to use. At least in our market. --- * Origin: Computer Castle / 20 Lines / Newton, NH / 603-382-0338 (1:324/127) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 223 CELLULAR Ref: EAF00004 Date: 06/09/97 From: LAIRD KELLY Time: 09:42pm \/To: GEORGE ERDNER (Read 2 times) Subj: NO: FREE PHONES GE>No one gets a phone at the end of their contract, they get it at the GE>beginning. A consumer who gets a phone for no cash payment (ie. a GE>"free" phone) in exchange for signing a contract takes full legal and GE>equitable title to that phone on day one. It is his property the minute GE>he walsk out of the store, which means it's up to him to get it repaired GE>if it breaks or to replace it if stolen. Minor correction 8-) it's like buying a car or a house - you *do not* have have "full ... title" until it is paid for (ie at the end of the contract) just full responsibility for maintenance etc. If you break the contract you will be expected to pay in full (or return the phone with certain contracts). I know, I know it's mere semantics but the fine print usually will say that the carrier/dealer "retains full title to the aforementioned cellular telephone" until completion of the contract. Laird E.R.U. Telecom div. Kelly Enterprises * SLMR 2.1a * Anything not nailed down is a cat toy. --- Silver Xpress Mail System 5.3M1e * Origin: The Higher Ground, Gig Harbor, WA (1:138/211)