Graham Nye wrote:
On 30/03/2012 18:03, Guy Gorton wrote:
"Adam H. Kerman" wrote:

For billing purposes, traditionally, calls from land lines were rated on
time and distance. Initially, cell phone calls were rated on time, only,
within the home coverage area, and time and distance, if the call terminated
outside the home coverage area.

What is a cell phone? Used in prisons?

Like a mobile, but with the useful feature that the user pays for
the inconvenience to everyone in earshot, rather than the caller.

(US mobiles have numbers that look like ordinary landline numbers
rather than being split off into a distinctive series, like our
07... numbers, so a US caller won't be aware from the number that
they are calling a cellular phone.)

Right. Callers from outside your country sure appreciate that
caller pays surcharge on top of the charge for international long distance,
as it's not readily apparent to foreigners that caller pays applies.

Caller pays is a lovely system.