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.
Take back the seconds (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the extra 15 seconds added by the operator really cost me anything since my phone bill uses 1-minute increments?
What would save us consumers a lot more money is having cellphone operators bill usage by the second. The European Commission already
forced the European operators [cnn.com] to adopt 1-second billing increments.
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Can't remember the last time I used voicemail (Score:3, Interesting)
The worst has to be getting someone's voicemail when calling from a satellite phone, 75c down the drain for nothing. Really wish there was a 5 second chance for you to hang up and not get charged, or better still abolish voicemail altogether. Let people run their own answering machines if they desire but ban voicemail
Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, millions upon millions of people are bloody morons. Big corporations are screwing them over only as long as they remain moronic. Can you explain why I should care?
We shouldn't. Those people are making the service CHEAPER for the rest of us.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:2, Interesting)
The French have a higher standard of living than we do, so of course you can expect some prices to be higher. Can you give me a concrete example of a poor market regulation though?
Re:Man up, you Tracphone bitch (Score:1, Interesting)
And while we're at it, why don't you go ahead and turn in your geek card for not knowing you could hit # and skip right to the beep.
What's so geeky about knowing a lot about the phone system? Phreaking is close to dead these days.
AT&T disables this on iPhones (Score:2, Interesting)
Ditch all the instructions. (Score:3, Interesting)
We're at the point in society where people should know how to leave a message on a damn answering machine. Hell, we stopped having the 'http://' on URLs in ads and business cards five years ago, but somehow people have forgotten how to operate an answering machine/voice mail after them being common for 25 years!
Also, we don't need to be informed someone can't answer the phone, but to leave a message and he'll get back to you. First of all, the voice mail message does not magically know that that is true...maybe he can answer it, and just didn't. Maybe he's dead, and won't return your call ever. Maybe he just doesn't fucking like you. Stop telling me nonsensical shit you don't actually know, you machine. Just record the damn message.
When an answering machines picks up, I should hear, in most cases, be something like "This is John Smith's phone. *beeeep*".
And the only reason there should be any message at all is to confirm we have the right phone number.
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:5, Interesting)
hmm .. let's take Carlin's speech point by point, by slightly paraphrasing what he says :
so ... 'the paranoid ramblings of a deluded old man shouting at hippies' ? perhaps, but at least he actually knows what he is talking about.
Re:Ridiculous (Score:2, Interesting)
I know of exactly one, it was not no-bid, in fact their competitor (Dyncorp)won the bid, but it was awarded to KBR because changing contractors would be too expensive. To say this equates with trumping up an aggressive war and awarding the VAST MAJORITY of all contracts (even performing tasks that they never performed before, which they subsequently sub-contracted to great detriment of the soldiers and civilians of Iraq) to Haliburton / KBR et al is disengenuous and a perfect example of right wing empty rhetoric. You may not have known it was a right wing LIE, but SOMEONE down the line knew it was, and yet spread it to all the right wingers who never bother to fact check their so-called 'sources' like Lush Bimbo and Michael the savage Weiner.
Re:Meaningless numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, a "certain percentage" being about 25%. If you tack an extra 15 seconds onto 100 calls of otherwise random length, you will use 25 extra minutes of airtime.
And don't get me started on Verizon's new "please enjoy the music while your party is contacted", so that you get charged while their phone is *RINGING*..
Re:Take back the seconds (Score:3, Interesting)
Ha! My ex is a lawyer in France, and I can assure you she works far far more than 35 hours per week. The standard work week is a fantasy. The French, in almost every case make significantly less money than their American counterparts.
They have a better social safety net. True. But overall, they are significantly poorer.