Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!hayes.ims.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request
From: DREUBEN@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Douglas Scott Reuben)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: $4 Per Day Roaming Charge
Message-ID: <14280@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 3 Nov 90 20:14:52 GMT
Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu
Organization: TELECOM Digest
Lines: 112
Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 786, Message 6 of 10


A few posts back Brian Litzinger mentioned that he was charged *two*
daily roam charges, one in the Stockton Cell One (McCaw) system, the
other in the Sac Cell One System.

This happened to me too, and the practice seems quite common - Cell
One San Francisco does this as well.

Sacramento is the main "center" for the Sac, Stockton, and Reno, NV
systems, and (I believe) if you have service in any one of those areas
as your "home" system, you can go into any of the others without
"roaming", ie, the roam light won't come on since the System ID code
is supposedly the same for all the systems. (Yet there seem to be
"secondary ID codes" in the format of 30xxx which no one seems to know
about ... Cell One SF told me this and I have no idea if they just made
it up or what).

So, for example, a customer with a 209 Stockton number can go to Reno
without having the roam light come on, and to him it appears as if he
is in one system.

Yet a roamer making the same trip is going from the Stockton system to
the Sac system and then to the Reno/Lake Tahoe system. Since Cell
One/McCaw charges a $2 daily roaming charge, a roamer who calls *611
and is told "Oh, we are all one big system, all the way up to Reno on
I-80" THINKS that there will be one daily charge, when, in effect, if
the phone is used for a billable call in all three areas, the roamer
will get all THREE $2 daily charges.

This is true of the San Francisco system - Cell One SAYS that its SF
system spans from Santa Rosa in the north to Santa Cruz in the south,
yet a roamer driving down US-101 and using his phone in each area will
pay a $2 a day charge for Santa Rosa, San Francisco, AND Santa Cruz.
The really stupid part about all this is that he will never know it
until the bill comes, because the roam port (415-860-7626) pages in
all three systems, and if the roamer reprograms his phone to the
SF/Cell One ID # (00041??), it will show "Home" in all three areas.
Roamers will only find out about this once they get their bills, and
if anyone has a mobile company as bad as mine, you will probably be
expected to pay for the charges despite what anyone at either your
home or the roam systems told you.

In Brian's case, he may have been in a transitional area between the
Stockton and Sac systems, so that depending on how the radio waves
travelled, he was alternating between systems. This happened to me
while up in the hills on CA-17, between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz,
where I kept getting caught between both systems, and was billed two
daily roam charges even though I was parked at a payphone along the
road for an hour.

It is unfortunate that mobile companies see fit to charge all of these
excessive "surcharges" for service, as all it tends to do is make the
mobile phone less productive and discourages further use by their
customers. Charging multiple dialy roam charges - or roam charges at
all - is an effective disincentive to use my phone to its fullest
extent. Frequently, when I find myself roaming and know that a call
will cost $3 (daily charge) and $.90 per minute (as the Philadelphia
"A" system will), I'll just wait till I get back to my home area or go
to a payphone (especially if it is a local call).  The same goes for
other charges, like airtime for call forwarding. Rather than tell
people to call me at the car all the time, and that: "If I'm not in
the car it will forward to a land number where you can get me...", I
now have to leave a list of numbers where I will be.

So rather than making a REASONABLE profit on a roamer call, or $4 per
month for having Call-Forwarding in my feature package (plus all the
calls I get when I am actually in the car since I USED to use my car
number as my general, 'always-reachable' number), the mobile companies
will get nothing. Many other people I talk to are also quite leary of
using these "extra" services which cell companies seem all to eager to
charge for. I can't see why they do this, as it would seem that such
charges tend to discourage usage for all but the most urgent calls.
Wouldn't they make more money in the long run by encouraging the cell
phone to be used as often as possible, rather than tacking on charges
that tend discourage use?

Hopefully other mobile companies will do what SNET has done and
abolish all daily roaming charges for their customers and set up a
flat, $.60 per- minute charge while roaming.

                     -------------------

Favorite Metro Mobile quote of the week (YES, I *do* seem to have to
call them at *least* once a week!):

Metro> "Oh yes, of course we are DMXed to Boston ... have been for a
year!"

Me> "So how come no one can call me there directly?"

Metro> "Did you turn your phone on?"

Me> (NO, I JUST EXPECTED IT TO PUT THE KEY IN THE IGNITION ALL BY
ITSELF!!!)
    "Yes, it was on..."

Metro> "Is this Boston, Mass. you are talking about?"

What I SHOULD have said> "Would you like me to shoot you now, or wait
till you get home? !!!!!! "


Doug

dreuben@eagle.wesleyan.edu
dreuben@wesleyan.bitnet


[Moderator's Note: Is it just me, or do most of you find the 'B'
carriers to me a little easier to reason with and a little less
expensive in their charges, particularly where roaming is concerned?
My experience in roaming is limited.     PAT]