Times article: "Mobile calls may cost receiver"

pinkonion

It would make for interesting conversations - especially if you get a call from a company wanting to sell you stuff!

DonnyDave

What about people who only have mobiles? Will they get a landline aswell?

GeoThermal

payless wrote:

If you think about it it could work - seems to work in US - think they also us local numbers

Does it not work something like they get loads more free minutes, ie 1000s and the payment comes out of the minutes? Could be well off with that but it's what I was told/read.

dag_2

If charging mobile users to receive calls means no termination charges - then I am very much in favour of it.

A person who receives a call on their mobile is under absolutely no obligation to answer it. They can always reject it, or let it ring out.

When we make calls from a landline to a mobile, or onto a different network, we don't really want to be billed extortionate rates for people who aren't that keen to talk to us anyway. If mobile users are given an incentive to reject calls they don't really want, then it saves money for the people who call them - quite apart from charges for connected calls being lower too.

Pay as you go phones will probably charge the same rates for both incoming and outgoing calls, though possibly less for receiving an on-net call. Contract mobiles will offer free minutes, and both incoming and outgoing calls would probably be counted out of the free minutes in the same way.

Personally I consider this issue a much higher priority than 0870 numbers - simply because mobile numbers are more expensive than 0870 numbers. Some businesses only have 0870 numbers, which is bad enough. But some traders only have mobile phone numbers, which is even worse. Why should we pay over the odds for it?

DonnyDave

dag wrote:

... Why should we pay over the odds for it?

But on a landline you pay a fixed line rental of something in the region of £10 per month. Why is this idea not implemented on mobiles? Why is it OK for mobile networks to charge this extortionate fee per minute, choose whether the caller or receiver pays for it?

michaels

I'm not so sure - 0870 is always expensive whereas mobile numbers you can generally have enough free/bundled minutes to call at no cost (literally no cost if you get your free minutes with a no line rental cashback deal)