[geeks] International calling question

[Mike Meredith]

On Wed, 1 Oct 2008 23:04:10 +0300, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> Mostly landlines. What do people have? 

Mostly both I'd imagine. Conservative people are likely to have a
landline because mobiles are "expensive" (because of inclusive minutes
they're not really). Others are likely to have it because broadband
(a rough guess calculated from the 23.7% of the population subscribe to
broadband would come to about 80% have access to broadband) typically
comes bundled with a landline.

As to how many people have mobiles in the UK, well about 115% of the
population apparently! There's some very odd people in the UK :)

> So it does not make a difference rate wise to pick a number anywhere, 
> assuming you have a choice. 

Without looking into it deeply I don't think you have a choice. Except
to choose a 'geographically independent' number for businesses that
want to look cool.

> Here too. Do people join these plans if they are "occasional" callers,
> or only heavy users? For example, I am automaticly enroled in a plan

I'm not sure (I'm not really a landline user). I don't think cheaper
rates for international numbers are typically bundled in with ordinary
packages. Many people are aware that special offers exist (you can pick
up phone cards at most corner shops that also give cheaper rates), but
unless they do phone internationally aren't going to bother.

Nifty way for the telcos to rip off those people! I'd imagine my
parents would never make an international call except for those
emergencies where money doesn't matter ("fly home! your dad is dying in
hospital").

> >No, or rather not usually.
> 
> So anyone in the UK (does that count Northern Ireland, or just
> Scotland Wales, and England?) is pretty much the same price to call.

Yes the UK includes NI, and yes they're the same price to call.

> I get that feeling too. However the last time I replied to a text
> message, (on the same network), it cost me more than a 30 second
> call, which since all I said was "yes, call me in the morning", was
> more than it was worth.

Bundled texts. And of course texting has the advantage that you don't
have to be sure the other person is there waiting for your call. But
yes you do have to wonder why texts are so expensive when they aren't
bundled; after all the lack of a need for a virtual circuit would seem
to indicate that they would be cheaper to deal with.


-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
 Religeon is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you'd have
 good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But
 for good people to do evil things, it takes religeon.
  -- Steven Weinberg