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#11
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phone service in AUS ...
On Fri, 28 May 2004 19:58:03 -0700, "4000 psi"
wrote: Different carriers have different policies for subscribers whose credits have expired. With Vodafone you can no longer dial out or sms - but you continue to receive calls and sms messages for a time!! don't you get billed for both outgoing and incoming calls on a mobile ... if you can still get calls for a time after charges have expired are these incoming calls free? do the mobile contracts include long distance service? In Australia all incoming calls, mobile or fixed, are free. That is, as long as you've paid for the basic service, there is no extra charge for receiving calls. It was quite a surprise (an unpleasant one) to find that wasn't the case overseas. On mobiles, it varies, but there is usually no difference between long distance and local. It is more expensive to call overseas. As I said earlier, it's complex. Check out the sites I mentioned. It also depends on where you intend to go. There are some country areas where GSM will not give coverage but CDMA does. There are vast areas where the only coverage possible is satellite. So it also depends on how critical instant communications are to you. If you intend wandering the outback, sometimes a combination of CDMA and CB radio may be the more inexpensive option, which is the way my mum does it in her motorhome. We sometimes spent a week or two out of range in the caravan, then answered a load of message bank queries on the mobile as soon as we got back to civilization. If you intend staying around Brisbane, GSM is fine but it will depend on how long you intend being here and how much you will use the phone - for outgoing only, incoming don't matter for cost. Some of the "cheap" contracts are commitments for twelve or 24 months. If you are only here for a short time, a pre-paid recharge card may be best. Cheers, Alan -- |
#12
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phone service in AUS ...
Last year - I used local pre-paid sims in Ireland, Italy and Turkey. NO
charge for incoming!! I also used Fido in Canada - a charge for incoming calls - and very poor coverage. gsm is not the main cell system in Canada!! "Alan" wrote in message ... On Sat, 29 May 2004 14:47:52 +1000, "A Mate" wrote: You only pay for incoming mobile calls in the USA and Canada as far as I know. Certainly you only pay for outgoing in Australia and NZ (and Europe!!). All mobile phones pay the same for 'long distance' as for local (That 'long distance higher rates' for cell phones is another North American speciality. All mobile phones have access to all network services. Almost all of the EU countries charge for incoming. At least they did last year, when I was there. Cheers, Alan -- |
#13
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phone service in AUS ...
On Sat, 29 May 2004 21:49:55 +1000, "A Mate"
wrote: Last year - I used local pre-paid sims in Ireland, Italy and Turkey. NO charge for incoming!! Maybe not for pre-paid. I was on Telstra roaming: Ireland: http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/pro...eratorid=28071 or http://tinyurl.com/2cz5e gives incoming at AU$0.41, with a setup of AU$0.40. On the same site, you can check Turkey ($0.80,$0.40) or Italy ($0.45, $0.40). I suspect it is factored into the overall cost on pre-paids, because talking to locals in Italy we confirmed that incoming was charged on their normal mobiles, not just something Telstra added on. It varied a little in cost between servers, and was something we checked before choosing when roaming. Australia is one of the very few countries that doesn't charge for incoming. We travelled 14 countries in Europe. All charged incoming. It's one reason we left the phone off most of the time, and called people back or emailed after checking messages. It's hard to politely get people to shut up when they don't realise it's costing you as well as them. The OP may find that his local service has roaming agreements with Telstra or Optus, this may solve his problem, as it did ours, provided his frequencies are compatible. We only had bi, not tri, so couldn't roam in the USA. Cheers, Alan -- |
#14
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phone service in AUS ...
"Alan" wrote in message ... In Australia all incoming calls, mobile or fixed, are free. That is, as long as you've paid for the basic service, there is no extra charge for receiving calls. It was quite a surprise (an unpleasant one) to find that wasn't the case overseas. On mobiles, it varies, but there is usually no difference between long distance and local. It is more expensive to call overseas. As I said earlier, it's complex. Check out the sites I mentioned. It also depends on where you intend to go. There are some country areas where GSM will not give coverage but CDMA does. There are vast areas where the only coverage possible is satellite. So it also depends on how critical instant communications are to you. If you intend wandering the outback, sometimes a combination of CDMA and CB radio may be the more inexpensive option, which is the way my mum does it in her motorhome. We sometimes spent a week or two out of range in the caravan, then answered a load of message bank queries on the mobile as soon as we got back to civilization. If you intend staying around Brisbane, GSM is fine but it will depend on how long you intend being here and how much you will use the phone - for outgoing only, incoming don't matter for cost. Some of the "cheap" contracts are commitments for twelve or 24 months. If you are only here for a short time, a pre-paid recharge card may be best. Cheers, Alan -- As stated by a few contributors, incoming calls to a mobile service are free - provided you are contracted to an Australian network provider. If you are using an overseas phone and global roaming, you will pay for incoming and outgoing calls. (Not that this is likely to be a situation you find yourself in. US cell phones don't work in Aus.) In terms of network coverage, it's a bit hit-and-miss once you get away from the main population centres. A few weeks back I was near Beechworth (Vic) and, out of a group of us using various networks (Telstra CDMA, Optus Telstra and Vodafone GSM) I was the only one who got any service, and that was with Telstra GSM. Even other Telstra GSM users didn't get a signal. CB radio is good for staying in touch with other members of your party, but if you're really going seriously outback it's worth considering hiring an HF (RFDS) radio. It costs, but 24-hour emergency watch is reassuring. Take a look at http://www.rfds.org.au/hfradio.htm for a description. There is, or was, a bit of a quirk with the pricing of Telstra's GSM. For national calls, you pay whatever your contracted rate may be. For international calls, you pay the fixed line rate plus an "air-time" charge. Not sure if it still works, but recently it was cheaper for me to phone Singapore than to phone somebody in the next street. Dave Campbell |
#15
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phone service in AUS ...
Alan wrote:
On Sat, 29 May 2004 21:49:55 +1000, "A Mate" wrote: Last year - I used local pre-paid sims in Ireland, Italy and Turkey. NO charge for incoming!! Maybe not for pre-paid. I was on Telstra roaming: Ireland: http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile/pro...eratorid=28071 or http://tinyurl.com/2cz5e gives incoming at AU$0.41, with a setup of AU$0.40. On the same site, you can check Turkey ($0.80,$0.40) or Italy ($0.45, $0.40). I suspect it is factored into the overall cost on pre-paids, because talking to locals in Italy we confirmed that incoming was charged on their normal mobiles, not just something Telstra added on. It varied a little in cost between servers, and was something we checked before choosing when roaming. Australia is one of the very few countries that doesn't charge for incoming. We travelled 14 countries in Europe. All charged incoming. It's one reason we left the phone off most of the time, and called people back or emailed after checking messages. It's hard to politely get people to shut up when they don't realise it's costing you as well as them. You were charged for incoming because you used an *Australian* mobile phone (/SIM) while *outside* Australia. I.e. you have an Australian phone number, but are outside Australia. That is normal, i.e. as soon as I take my Dutch mobile phone outside The Netherlands, I pay for incoming calls. What I pay is the part which is *not* payed by the caller. The idea is that the caller has no way of knowing that I am not in The Netherlands, so it is not fair for hir to pay for the fact that I happen to be abroad, so (s)he pays the normal local Dutch rate (i.e. so to speak "to the border") and I pay the rest, i.e. "from the Dutch border" to whereever I happen to be. So it seems that in the civilized world, there is no charge for an incoming call to a local mobile phone number! :-) [deleted] |
#16
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phone service in AUS ...
you pay for incoming and outgoing calls on canadian mobiles as well and its a nasty suprise on your bill if you forget that.. but their local calls are free, just your line rental per month unlike the per call charge in Aus. For phone service in Aus the best thing to do is work out what your going to be using it for first because a lot of the mobile phone plans are tailored towards specific uses (free minutes at night, lower cost calls to mobiles within their network etc etc). Its probably best to start off with a prepaid plan rather than a contract until you have time to really look around, you don't want to get stuck with a contract you don't like. Have a look around on their websites and get an idea of what they are offering before deciding www.telstra.com.au[/url] ]www.vodaphone.com.au www.optus.com.au[/url] ]www.virgin.com.au -- Posted via http://britishexpats.com |
#17
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phone service in AUS ...
On Fri, 28 May 2004 19:58:03 -0700, "4000 psi"
wrote: Different carriers have different policies for subscribers whose credits have expired. With Vodafone you can no longer dial out or sms - but you continue to receive calls and sms messages for a time!! don't you get billed for both outgoing and incoming calls on a mobile ... if you can still get calls for a time after charges have expired are these incoming calls free? We are not like that uncivilised country known as the Untied States which charges you when people wing YOU. Dave ===== NSW Rural Fire Service - become a volunteer today. http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/ |
#18
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phone service in AUS ...
On 29 May 2004 15:26:26 GMT, Frank Slootweg
wrote: So it seems that in the civilized world, there is no charge for an incoming call to a local mobile phone number! :-) One of the reasons for this though is that most of the world clearly distinguished mobile phone numbers from other numbers - ALL Australian mobile phone numbers start with 04, for example, so it is apparent that you are calling a mobile - you know you are going to pay for it. In the Untied States, there is no such clear distinction, with mobiles sharing the same area codes as landlines. Hence, it is not clear whether you are calling a mobile or a landline. In cases such as this it is only fair to charge the receiver of the call. (And they call this country a "world leader"! ROFL ) Dave ===== NSW Rural Fire Service - become a volunteer today. http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/ |
#19
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phone service in AUS ...
Calling Australia Cell phones is pretty cheap! Buy a calling card for your cell
and you are all set! Merlin -- GLOBO - Travel Community http://www.globosapiens.net Travel pictures, travelogues Dave Proctor wrote: On Fri, 28 May 2004 19:58:03 -0700, "4000 psi" wrote: Different carriers have different policies for subscribers whose credits have expired. With Vodafone you can no longer dial out or sms - but you continue to receive calls and sms messages for a time!! don't you get billed for both outgoing and incoming calls on a mobile ... if you can still get calls for a time after charges have expired are these incoming calls free? We are not like that uncivilised country known as the Untied States which charges you when people wing YOU. Dave ===== NSW Rural Fire Service - become a volunteer today. http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/ |
#20
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phone service in AUS ...
Calling Australia Cell phones is pretty cheap! Buy a calling card for your cell
and you are all set! Merlin -- GLOBO - Travel Community http://www.globosapiens.net Travel pictures, travelogues Dave Proctor wrote: On Fri, 28 May 2004 19:58:03 -0700, "4000 psi" wrote: Different carriers have different policies for subscribers whose credits have expired. With Vodafone you can no longer dial out or sms - but you continue to receive calls and sms messages for a time!! don't you get billed for both outgoing and incoming calls on a mobile ... if you can still get calls for a time after charges have expired are these incoming calls free? We are not like that uncivilised country known as the Untied States which charges you when people wing YOU. Dave ===== NSW Rural Fire Service - become a volunteer today. http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/ |
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