Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!pprg.unm.edu!hc!lll-winken!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: geoff@fernwood.mpk.ca.us (the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Cellular Service. Message-ID: Date: 20 Mar 89 19:11:19 GMT Sender: news@vector.UUCP Lines: 47 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 100, message 4 of 7 In reply to John Higdon's message of 10 Mar 89 on Cellular Service in LA: Pac*Tel Cellular's charging for non-completed calls finds its way directly to the bottem line. Pac*Tel's cellular operation made $16 million in profit in 1988. Count your blessings they do not sick you with a multi-dollar a day roaming fee, yet. The vast majority of cellular carriers today are really gouging roamers with multi-dollar-a-day roaming fee's. Both Cellular One (majority owned by Pac*Tel) and GTE Mobilnet here in the Bay area do. Perhaps the Cellular Industry is trying to position for a lead spot the Telecom Popularity contest, currently held by the AOS industry. I can't believe that Pac*Tel makes sure most calls bomb as you have claimed, but rather they are suffering from acute success disaster symptoms. Even at the high rates they charge, they cannot expand the system fast enough. Pac*Tel is currently in the process of ripping out all the original AT&T AutoPlex gear (ESS 1A based -- nice klunks on hand-off) and replacing it with Motorola RF and a Digital Switch based MTSO. Cellular is just to popular in spread-out Southern California. While I owned a cellular phone, i made it a practice not to patronize systems that charged for non-completed calls or gouged with daily romaing fee's. The best way to vote is with your wallet. In fact, several colleagues i know leave their portable phones at home when traveling/romaing these days. When you look at a multi-dollar a day roaming fee + 50c-85c per minute air-time + long distance (sometimes 0+ or 950-xxxx, both with their own roaming stipends tacked on), a two or three minute call home becomes a $6-$7 affair. No thanks, think i'll find a pay phone. If you're still using you cellular phone at these prices, clearly they aren't charging enough, yet. I have watched various markets gradually increase their roaming rates over the years, while not touching local rates. Philladelphia A-Carrier (non-wireline) for example, used to be $.45/peak, $.27/non-peak in the early days with no daily gratuity. Now they are $3/day and $.85/min peak-AND-non-peak. You pay the $3 daily fee whether your call completed or not. If you are driving up to NY from Washington DC and place a call on each system you pass through that'll be a $6-$7 charge per system for that one call. Some systems, like Cellular One here in the Bay Area, won't let you recieve calls as a roamer unless you place one each day, therefore incuring their $2/day roaming fee (so thought you would bring your portable along and just use it to recieve important calls). Be very careful before you press the s(p)end button and where you use your cellular phone. Geoff Goodfellow IMTS Mobile Telephone User