DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben) (11/05/90)
Hi-
A while back I posted an inquiry as to how Cellular Telephone
Companies justify the charges for AIRTIME (not tolls) on
Call-Forwarded calls, especially calls which are unconditionally
forwarded (*72). These calls do not seem to take up *any* airtime, as
the entire processing is handled at the switch.
The numerous people who responded to me indicated that the above is
more or less correct (and THANK YOU! for taking the time to answer),
and that there are many, if not a majority, of Cellular Companies who
do not charge for this service, or who charge a small, fixed fee for
use of an extra trunk by which the forwarded call is sent away from
the switch to whatever said forwarded number is.
I mentioned this to my customer service rep. at Metro Mobile
(Connecticut's [derogatory adjective of choice] "A" carrier), and
since she was unable to respond to these questions, I asked that a
'management person' write back to me explaining why they started
charging airtime for call-forwarding.
This is what I got back in Saturday's mail:
Dear Mr. Reuben:
This letter is in response to your recent question about Metro
Mobile's charges for calls forwarded from your mobile telephone.
We are permitted by our interconnection arrangements and by law
to charge usage rates for the utilization of the cellular system,
when forwarding or transferring calls through our switch. Additionally,
we are allowed to charge local exchange service rates (if any)
incurred to complete calls using the public switched telephone
network. Similarly, we are allowed to charge toll rates for completion
of toll traffic, where applicable.
Therefore, per-minute usage (airtime and long-distance tolls, if
applicable) are appropriately charged for each forwarded call from
your mobile telephone. Similarly, per-minute usage charges apply
to all transferred calls, in conjunction with out "no-answer
transfer feature". (Were you to have "call waiting" or "conference
calling", applicable usage would also be charged for all calls
involved.
We apologize ... [for being a bunch of idiots .., please call
your customer service rep. if you want to be more confused,
etc.- DR]
Cordially,
Charles Murphy
Vice President, Marketing
Err ... did I miss something here? Or did he basically tell me that
the reason that Metro Mobile/Connecticut (and RI too) charge airtime
for call-forwarding is because they can get away with it, "by law"? I
mean, I know they are free to charge what they want, but WHY?? If it
is to make more money, I wish the guy would have just come out and
said "Because that's what the market will bear..." So I had to spend 3
hours writing a letter to the exec. headquarters in New York City
telling them why there is no *technical* reason to charge airtime (ie,
airtime is not being used), and to thus explain to me what Mr. Murphy
could not.
Anyone know the names of the Administrative judges at the FCC who get
to decide if the present system of two cell systems per market should
be expanded to further competition? I'd like to make some LARGE
contributions to them...! :-) (Better than paying airtime for call
forwarding!! -- probably cheaper too! :-) )
By the way, I too would say that on average, the "B" carriers seem a
lot more reasonable and rational than do the "A"'s ... (Possible
exceptions: NYNEX/Boston, which charges airtme PLUS a daily charge
just to activate or deactivate Follow Me Roaming; McCaw/Cell One
Stockton - they went out of their way, on the 4th of July - to program
my number into their switch so that I would have service in Lake
Tahoe ... all this and I wasn't even a customer, but a roamer!)
Doug
dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu
dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet
[Moderator's Note: By the same token, I have to wonder how they get
away with charging double air time on call-waiting and three-way
calling connections. Both of these situations are done in the switch
also. The cell phone user is not holding up two frequencies; he has
nothing in his phone which is manipulating the calls on hold, etc. The
fact is, the switch is either merging the calls (in three-way calling)
and transmitting them both over the same frequency or swapping them in
and out (in the case of call-waiting) and sending one or the other out
over the frequency. In any case *one frequency* -- one use of
'airtime'. But, they get away with it. PAT]