In message , at 11:50:36
on Wed, 26 Jan 2011, David Cantrell remarked:
I often feel that people have been lulled into a sense of false security
by so many "bundled minutes" plans on mobiles (and fixed line phones
have them too these days). The underlying cost of mobile calls is *much*
greater than landline ones, that's just something we have to live with.

But there's no reason why calls to 080 numbers can't at least be
included in bundled minutes, aside from profiteering on the part of the
mobile phone company.

OFCOM is currently consulting on proposals to make 0800 free from
mobiles.

I don't see any reason why calls to 0845 numbers can't be included
either, perhaps with a multiplier so that each minute of call "costs" 2
bundled minutes, or whatever, if the costs involved really are so much
higher than calls to, for example, other networks' mobiles (which *are*
included in bundled minutes).

From my time in the mobile phone industry, the charging scheme tends to
be built around what the billing system will allow you to do. So having
different "consumption rates" of bundled minute is probably not
something they can cope with - otherwise it would probably have been
done by now.

Again, that I have to pay eleventy squillion pence a minute looks like
profiteering, on both the part of the mobile phone companies and TfL.

All calls cost almost zero, on a marginal cost basis. What ends up on
the price list is a complex combination of amortising network build
costs, what other operators charge you at the interconnects, and what
the market will stand.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:19:13AM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:

From my time in the mobile phone industry, the charging scheme tends to
be built around what the billing system will allow you to do. So having
different "consumption rates" of bundled minute is probably not
something they can cope with - otherwise it would probably have been
done by now.

Hmmph. From *my* time in the phone industry (admittedly this was mostly
wholesale, with some landlines) the billing system can be very flexible
indeed.

Perhaps they should write some better billing software.

--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information

Good advice is always certain to be ignored,
but that's no reason not to give it -- Agatha Christie

In message , at 11:32:02
on Fri, 28 Jan 2011, David Cantrell remarked:

From my time in the mobile phone industry, the charging scheme tends to
be built around what the billing system will allow you to do. So having
different "consumption rates" of bundled minute is probably not
something they can cope with - otherwise it would probably have been
done by now.

Hmmph. From *my* time in the phone industry (admittedly this was mostly
wholesale, with some landlines) the billing system can be very flexible
indeed.

Perhaps they should write some better billing software.

They do - for example the whole PAYG platform, rather than monthly
subscriptions, was new. Nevertheless, any billing system needs "levers
to pull" (to implement a fancy new charging scheme[1]) and if they
aren't there, the marketing people have to think again.

[1] Brainstorm: maybe something like "all calls to someone you've
already called for more than half an hour that day are half price". Of
course, one you've got the levers in place, you can tinker with the
"half hour" and the "half price" (and perhaps even the "that day",
although I wouldn't put it past the IT people to take that literally and
hard code it in) until the cows come home - but the billing system needs
to support that model.
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 02:13:07PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:32:02
on Fri, 28 Jan 2011, David Cantrell remarked:
Hmmph. From *my* time in the phone industry (admittedly this was mostly
wholesale, with some landlines) the billing system can be very flexible
indeed.
Perhaps they should write some better billing software.
They do - for example the whole PAYG platform, rather than monthly
subscriptions, was new. Nevertheless, any billing system needs "levers
to pull" (to implement a fancy new charging scheme[1]) and if they
aren't there, the marketing people have to think again.

Where I work now, those of us who create and run the back-end software
get requirements from the rest of the business, which we then implement.
In EVERY place that I've worked, that is what happens. Marketing (or
whoever) say "we need thus and so", and we say either "OK, it will take
X weeks, you can have it in Whatevermonth", or we say "that breaks the
laws of physics, what do you *really* want?", or we say "that conflicts
with this other requirement, oil up and get in a cage with them and
fight it out".

So the marketing people need to think about what levers they would like
to pull.

Anyway, I've recently been looking at alterantive telcos, cos my O2
contract is up. One of them (I forget which) lets you buy a certain
number of 08expensive minutes a month in advance. It's quite a
reasonable rate, compared to their normal 08ripoff. I suppose that
that's at least a good start.

--
David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice

Eye have a spelling chequer / It came with my pea sea
It planely marques four my revue / Miss Steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word / And weight for it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write / It shows me strait a weigh.

In message , at 14:02:14
on Mon, 31 Jan 2011, David Cantrell remarked:
On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 02:13:07PM +0000, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:32:02
on Fri, 28 Jan 2011, David Cantrell remarked:
Hmmph. From *my* time in the phone industry (admittedly this was mostly
wholesale, with some landlines) the billing system can be very flexible
indeed.
Perhaps they should write some better billing software.
They do - for example the whole PAYG platform, rather than monthly
subscriptions, was new. Nevertheless, any billing system needs "levers
to pull" (to implement a fancy new charging scheme[1]) and if they
aren't there, the marketing people have to think again.

Where I work now, those of us who create and run the back-end software
get requirements from the rest of the business, which we then implement.
In EVERY place that I've worked, that is what happens. Marketing (or
whoever) say "we need thus and so", and we say either "OK, it will take
X weeks, you can have it in Whatevermonth", or we say "that breaks the
laws of physics, what do you *really* want?", or we say "that conflicts
with this other requirement, oil up and get in a cage with them and
fight it out".

So the marketing people need to think about what levers they would like
to pull.

And that's what they did with PAYG.

The problem with the underlying billing platforms is that they had to be
able to feed bills out to hundreds of tied resellers (remember when
phones could only be bought through them) as well as being able to cope
with the effect the new charging structure would have on interconnect
agreements with a dozen or more other domestic telcos.

Nothing is impossible (within reason) but if it means rewriting the code
then you can't have it by the middle of next week.

Anyway, I've recently been looking at alterantive telcos, cos my O2
contract is up. One of them (I forget which) lets you buy a certain
number of 08expensive minutes a month in advance. It's quite a
reasonable rate, compared to their normal 08ripoff. I suppose that
that's at least a good start.

I wonder if that's a stealth pilot scheme for the proposed "free from
mobile" 0800 scheme OFCOM is consulting about?
--
Roland Perry