David Pogue Wants to Take Back the Beep 383
David Pogue has distilled into useful form a long-standing complaint I have (and one reason I have long had a voice mail greeting that asked people not to leave me voicemail): cell phone companies set up the greeting, caller instructions, and playback system prompts in large part to maximize their revenue per user; by his calculations, the "mandatory 15-second voicmail instructions" from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and others is earning those companies something near a billion dollars a year in charges. Pogue suggests that users should "take back the beep," and to that end provides contact information for the largest cell carriers in order to register a complaint — and, more helpful in the short run, suggests ways in which to make better use of paid-for phone minutes by alerting callers how to bypass the annoying instructions.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn it, every single good technology regulation idea I've seen in the past ten years, from universal cell phone chargers to browser choice in operating systems, has come from the EU. Why can't we stand up to big corporations here in the US?
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the U$: government by the corporations, for the corporations.
Track how much slush fund money Obama got under the table from certain groups if you don't believe me. Keep track of why certain Florida/California representatives might as well tag their names with (D-Disney) rather than (D-State).
Look at who paid for - and got - the last three copyright extensions, the DMCA, etc.
This is what happens when your campaigns are privately financed and not on level playing fields (e.g. same budgetary restrictions per candidate).
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
My second favorite are the menus that start with "Please listen carefully as our options have changed blah blah blah..." It seems, almost invariably, that those messages just become permanent. Someone changes the system and forgets they added that message or never bothers to update it.
Plans come in chunk much greater than 15 seconds (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:4, Insightful)
Money may be speech according to the Supreme Court, but it's profane speech.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone ever even use those garbage options? Page them? wtf?
And are there any cell phones left out there without caller ID? Don't they already have my number in the missed calls log?
Re:Plans come in chunk much greater than 15 second (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:so there are people who pay by the minute? (Score:1, Insightful)
Except by probably losing some of their inclusive minutes. Then you have to look at how if you make a call to a billed number on another network, your network is actually paying for call termination to the other one, even if you are using an inclusive minute. Do you think they pay for that out of the kindness of their hearts, or do you think you're paying for at least some fraction of it in your fixed monthly fee?
CAPTCHA: hiding. As in, what the real costs are doing.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
That "our menu options have changed" message kills me. Changed when? From what? Sorry, Bank of XYZ, but I didn't memorize your options in the first place. Sorry.
Who is this still a problem for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Flashback to 1995 when cellphone bills and long distance calls were by the minute and rather expensive. Only landline local calls were exempt from by-minute charges, and phone companies had a lot of opportunities to increase revenue by lengthening phone calls just a little bit.
Compare that to today when most cellphone users have free night and weekend minutes plus anytime minutes, most landlines have free long distance and some users with unlimited cell plans are immune from these charges. The only people affected are those making international calls or using cellphones during the day while over their minutes. This is an increasingly small demographic.
Compound that with the fact that data is where most of the cellphone money is and you quickly see that keeping people connected via cell tower may prevent more business / data users from connecting who really have the high paying plans. It's actually in cellphone companies' best interest now to keep those lines as clear as possible to support good service to as many new / existing customers as possible instead of keeping the airwaves as busy as possible.
If you have one of the plans which makes you fit into the demographic affected by a 15 second delay, then I can understand your desire to shorten the time to when you can leave a message or leave none at all, but I personally am a fan of voice mail intros as it lets me know I didn't accidentally dial a wrong number. My advice for you is to learn the quick-keys on various carriers that bring you to the voice mailbox immediately (like # on T-mobile and Sprint.) I wouldn't disagree to going to a per-second billing like the EU did, but I promise you can take off your tinfoil hats - there is no conspiracy to make you use more minutes anymore and removing voice mailbox introductions would actually be removing something valuable for some people.
Re:Earth to David! (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're going to talk about how cell companies nickle and dime their customers, there are way bigger fish to fry than voicemail - SMS, MMS, ringtones, etc.
Re:so there are people who pay by the minute? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it struck me as a 'big scary number' style calculation.
I bet the amount people 'overpay' by using basket style contracts is even huger.
Re:Earth to David! (Score:1, Insightful)
If he got execs high up in companies to admit to it more power to him. Given the complete lack of foresight of most executives I'd wager dollars to donuts they are just taking credit for something that happened of it's own accord. Perhaps that makes me closer to the conspiracy theorists than I'd like....
Executive egotism aside, what we're talking about is a system that caters to noobs and costs more (e.g. Apple). So his particular whiny rant is for people who:
Aren't such beginners that they need the message.
But aren't so advanced as to learn how to press the "#."
And don't want their message to waste the five seconds it takes to make their greeting, "Press '#' to leave a message.
Sorry that's just stupid. We don't live in a world where everyone understands technology without directions, or knows that they can hit a key to send an SMS page, or that they can leave a message and restart it if the dog starts barking in the middle. Beginners aren't going to guess at "that these abilities must exist" and start hitting keys to find them. Systems are designed for the least common denominator without any oppressive influence of "The Man" to add a few seconds to your phone bill.
The world is not stocked entirely with /. geeks.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, look. Another dorm room political expert who puts dollar signs in proper names, because corruption only occurs in the U.S.! What was all that stuff about the U.N.'s oil for food program? I only criticize the U$!
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:2, Insightful)
Money is not "profane." Money is just an object. People, however, have the capability of being profane, and that does not require money, capitalism, nationality, or anything else other than simply being a person who decides to be selfish.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Their standard of living has nothing to do with retail prices. What are you smoking? Retail prices are the result of manufacturing or import costs, plus the overhead imparted by regulatory compliance.
And having spent plenty of time in France and in the US, I really doubt they have a higher standard of living by any sane metric.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Plans come in chunk much greater than 15 second (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
Purchasing power parity? Are you kidding me? That's just per-capita GDP with a paint job. Here are RFK's immortal words on that subject:
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bite. Medical Device regulations, for one. To sell in Europe you need to be ISO-certified, which means you have to buy the standard (in this case, ISO 13485), for a couple thousand - then you have to contract with a certifying organization, which you will pay several thousand dollars to have someone come and audit your paperwork for a few days before making some findings and leaving (they don't want to revoke your certification, though - if they do that, you'll get a different certifying body next time, and they won't get your money. You are the customer of the person auditing you - there's a pretty clear conflict of interest).
ISO 13485 mandates that you "establish, document, implement, and maintain a quality management system and maintain its effectiveness." Basically, they mandate... paperwork.
By contrast, in the US, you need to abide by FDA's cGMP part 820, which is freely available on their website and which they will periodically audit you on and put you out of business if you're not compliant.
The FDA, meanwhile, says "[t]he requirements in this part govern the methods used in, and the facilities and controls used for, the design, manufacture, packaging, labeling, storage, installation, and servicing of all finished devices intended for human use. The requirements in this part are intended to ensure that finished devices will be safe and effective and otherwise in compliance with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the act)." They mandate good manufacturing practices that insure you don't kill people with your product, and on the offchance that you DO, that you keep records that would enable you to do an immediate recall while notifying the FDA.
ISO mandates process diagrams and a quality policy. Useful.
In fact, the whole reason that ISO 13485 came about is because the FDA determined that ISO 9001 was stupid and dangerous, and that any medical device manufacturer who became 9001 certified would not get cleared for sale in the US.
(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fda.gov%2Fdownloads%2FMedicalDevices%2FDeviceRegulationandGuidance%2FPostmarketRequirements%2FQualitySystemsRegulations%2FUCM134625.pdf&ei=TCFySuzPNYGHtgemn52NBA&rct=j&q=fda+iso+9001&usg=AFQjCNEDKFkwfQgd-cptfspZx13gF-idgg)
(Posting as an Anonymous Coward since I've never been to slashdot before. 'Sup guys?)
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what pisses me off?
"Please enter your 5 digit account number.... FOLLOWED BY THE POUND SIGN"
If you know it's a 5 digit number, why the fuck do I need to hit the pound sign?
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Insightful)
35 hour working week. Higher minimum wage. Minimum 5 weeks holiday a year (UK, France has even more). Lower crime rates. Better public transport. Free and universal public healthcare. I could go on.
Which of those metrics is not sane?
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:2, Insightful)
And people with more money get to shout louder in our current system? Is that fair?
Nope, but they're allowed to run a propaganda machine that feeds macho rhetoric to the lower classes in order to get them to vote against their financial interests.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:3, Insightful)
Since there is no way to backspace, if you screw up a digit (which is all too easy to do on many phones) you can just hit the pound sign early and re-enter it. If you instead just hit more random numbers until you hit 5 digits, then there is a risk that the number you entered might be valid and it will let you incorrectly proceed.
Well? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what I don't like about the modding system. Someone can spout a complete lie and people will mod them up for it, and they never have to support their lie with FACTS. I had thought the /. community was smarter than that, but I stand corrected.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:4, Insightful)
Because your might decide NOT to confirm your number after you typed the last digit, for example if you mistyped the number or changed your mind.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I see those taxes as a bad thing. That is because I crave freedom, and despise any collectivist attempt to take the wealth that I produce away from me at gunpoint. Just as I despise any attempt from any other thief taking my wealth from me at gunpoint.