[asterisk-users] Nomination for Coolest App in 2007

[Yuan LIU]

>From: Brad Templeton <brad+aster at templetons.com>
>Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:37:55 -0700
>
>On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 09:37:45AM -0500, Steve Totaro wrote:
> >
> > Another interesting (from an American's perspective anyways) is that
> > inbound calls on cell phones are free.  Even if you buy a SIM with a
> > little pre-paid time and use up the time, you can still receive inbound
> > calls for free for a couple months.
>
>Inbound calls on cell phones outside North America are alas, not
>free, though people pretend they are free.   They are "caller pays
>for airtime."   The only free incoming call systems I have seen
>are some mobile to mobile free call plans, and a small number of
>North American mobile plans that, for a flat monthly or daily
>fee, offer free incoming.

Several carriers in Canada offer first-minute incoming free.  Quite an 
interesting concept from consumer's perspective.

>The caller-pays system found outside North America is, in
>my view -- though I know some differ -- one of the last, great
>curses of old world telephony on our new environment.

This debate came up in several places and the verdict is not crystal clear.  
Do you realize that caller-pays system also effectively reduces spam - or at 
least make it less painful?  Especially with SMS, people who carries a 
mobile phone could easily be targeted by marketers and PAY for it! (I'm 
starting to see voice telemarketers calling to people's cell phones these 
days.)  Considering per-minute cost in a mobile network is still much higher 
than that in PSTN, you can't deny advantages of a caller-pays system.

Yuan Liu

>With my VoIP terminators, I can call most of the world's
>landline's for a price so low I think of it as free,
>with one exception -- the damn caller-pays cell phones
>which cost over an order of mangitude more because the
>fact that the payer doesn't negotiate the price removes
>the competition that would normally drive the price down.
>(And has driven it down in the receiver-pays countries.)
>
>However, for people in those countries, the bluetooth
>module does seem like a good idea.  Obviously in places
>with no landlines, but also in places with these bizarre
>prices, so that if you call one mobile from another mobile,
>it's cheap, but if you call from a SIP terminator, it's
>25 cents/minute.
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