I’ve just been talking to a colleague in the US and it’s clear that one of the few “technological” differences between the US and Europe is in the cell phone market, so for the benefit of US readers, here’s a top ten guide to the basics of European mobile telecoms.
i) They’re called mobile phones.
ii) Wireless carriers are network operators, though most people would just ask, “What network are you on?”
iii) The caller always pays for the call. Regardless of whether I call from my mobile phone or someone calls me while I’m on my mobile phone, the caller always pays. I don’t pay to receive calls except when I’m roaming –see below.
iv) All phones use the GSM standard, so as long as I have an unlocked phone and a SIM for the particular mobile network, I can use the phone with that network. All SIM cards are made to the same standard, so they’re interchangeable in the phones (unless there’s a SIM-lock).
v) Mobile phone numbers are not geographically attached, i.e. looking at my phone number will not tell anyone whereabouts I live.
vi) When I’m in my home country, e.g. UK, I can only use the network for which I have a SIM, even if I’m out of coverage of my network but another is available.
vii) When I’m abroad in a different country, that’s roaming. I can use any network available, though usually my home network will have preferential rates with a local network. In this instance, if a caller calls me, he will still get charged for a calling a mobile phone at home but I get charged extra for the privilege of taking the call while abroad.
viii) There are two business models – contract and pay-as-you-go (PAYG). I don’t think that there’s much difference here between the US and Europe, only that PAYG is much more popular in Europe, whereas contracts are the norm in the US. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. PAYG SIMs are nearly free on most networks, so if you have a GSM phone and you are visiting from the US, it’s a great way to make local calls on your phone, without incurring huge transatlantic charges.
ix) Most networks don’t bother with customisation of phones beyond putting their logo on the body or setting the home page on the browser.
x) There are only four operators with their own network in the UK (O2, Orange, T-Mobile & Vodafone). However, there are a couple of mobile virtual network operators – MVNOs – such as Virgin Mobile, which piggyback on someone else’s network.
Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion between the two markets and provides useful info for visitors.
Some plans offer so many text/pictures sent per month for a fee, or if you have multiple users or use a lot of texts, you can add on an unlimited package. We have five phones on our plan (family plan) and pay for unlimited text and pictures for all, it’s about $20 a month to do that. But these are not “smart” phones, we don’t use them to surf the ‘net or send emails, that costs per use and is expensive. We could get a data plan, but those are pricey too, so we just use them as phones. We share 700 minutes a month, that is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. M-F, the rest of the time is free. All calls to anyone in our same carrier/network is free. We get to keep unused minutes every month and they roll over to the next month for use. Very handy.
Thank you for your reply. I have only used PAYG in the US, so never noticed, and never received many calls either.
So what about text and picture messages, is it the same?
Yes, we pay for all calls incoming and outgoing, unless it is free time, which is usually evenings and weekends. And some plans allow free calls between two phones on the same network/carrier no matter what time of day it is.
Re iii) – Do people in America pay to receive calls on their mobile phones?