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To: gdichaz who wrote (7952)	3/27/2000 2:50:00 PM
From: Quincy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 13582

Calling party pays... One problem with giving up your wired phone line is overcoming the reluctance of phone companies to give out your phone number. No directory listing anywhere. Has anyone gotten a "spam" cellular call? I have the impression it was illegal like spamming fax machines.

To: gdichaz who wrote (7952)	3/27/2000 3:57:00 PM
From: surpow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13582

The system now is "person called pays" Chaz: On the drive back from Sun Valley yesterday, my wife and I were discussing the fact that the institutions are making out like bandits with the current system. The fact is that as more and more people get mobile phones, more and more calls to mobile phones will be originated from mobile phones. Point being that with the existing situation, both parties pay, and the providers are stoked. Noah

To: gdichaz who wrote (7952)	3/27/2000 6:24:00 PM
From: Drew Williams	Respond to of 13582

Chaz, As one of the people with the biggest yawns about this topic, I must once again question at least part of your premise, fear of telemarketers. My company has about fifty active cellular phones. Everyone who ever goes out of the building has one along with a pager. I have never heard of a telemarketer targeting anyone with a cellular phone. I just checked with out entire sales department, our heaviest cellular users, and NONE of them have ever gotten a telemarketing call via cellular (either directly or through voice mail,) while all of us use answering machines to screen out telemarketing calls at home. Perhaps this is because we live in a Swiss Cheese coverage area (metropolitan Philadelphia, PA) (Go Go Globalstar!) and it is different where you live? I think your point about the limited "free" minutes being wasted is a better point, but it is increasingly an obsolete point. Almost all the programs I've seen lately start at 200-300 minutes for less than I was paying for 60 minutes not too long ago. Sprint has been especially aggressive in this, and Bell Atlantic is matching them plan for plan. Unless you have no wired phone at home or are a particularly talkative teenage girl (my daughter is getting there -- she's 10 in two weeks) even the 200 minute plans seem like more than enough to me for non-business use. In other words, I believe we are fast approaching the point where the per-minute price and who pays is not much of an issue. Personally, I believe Caller Pays is a big-picture negative for the wireless carriers. It makes every caller decide to spend money on every call. My mother-in-law, who does keep her cellular phone on all the time (at least when she remembers to charge it) used to drive miles to avoid pay phones for exactly that reason. Gotta go. We're shutting down all the computers here because of a major thunderstorm.