The best thing about owning and operating a cell phone in Australia VS the US, and this IS true, is that we don't pay for incoming calls and messages.
That seems absolutely crazy to me. If carriers tried to implement that here they would lose all their customers overnight... why is it that customers in the US have to pay for incoming calls and messages as well as outgoing ones? Its double dipping!! And why are you guys (US cell phone customers) putting up with it? A genuine question.
In the USA, the originator's costs end as soon as the call exits the originator's phone network and enters the recipient's local phone exchange. Any costs that are incurred bringing the call from the recipient's local phone exchange into the recipient's handset, is the responsibility of the recipient.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Australia, I believe the originating caller's phone company sets aside a portion of the money it charges the originating caller, and forwards it to the receiving phone company to cover the receiving company's costs associated with completing the call.
If you use a USA landline phone to call a cell phone registered in the same local calling area (as defined by the originating phone's service provider -- it may be the size of the city, or it may be the size of the state, or it may be nationwide), your call can go on literally forever without incurring any charges whatsoever on your landline phone account.
However, the cell company still wants to recover its airtime costs for maintaining the wireless end of the connection, but they will not be receiving any per-minute subsidy from the originating landline carrier to do so. So they charge the receiver instead.
By extension, then, they treat
all incoming calls in the same way. The recipient is responsible for the full cost of maintaining the wireless connection on their end of the call, without requiring the sender to subsidize the recipient's end of the line. On the other hand, the sender is responsible for
only the costs associated with the maintaining the
originating side of the call. In theory, it ought to result in the originator paying approximately half as much per minute, as (s)he would if (s)he was responsible for paying the full cost. The recipient would be required to pick up the remaining half of the cost.
Overall, the sum total fees collected would theoretically work out to be equal - the only difference is the proportion of the fees that are covered by each participant: either 100% originator/0% recipient, or 50% originator/50% recipient.
In practice, the theory appears to be true:
With a typical Telstra iPhone plan, you appear to be paying between AU$0.35 to $0.40 per 30 seconds of airtime - $0.70 to $0.80 per minute - plus a AU$0.37 set-up fee for every call. Australian dollars are approximately on par with US dollars at the moment.
With a typical AT&T iPhone plan, you'll pay between $0.40 and $0.45 per minute, without any set-up fee per call.
In accordance with theory, the US airtime rate is approximately half that of the Australian airtime rate on a per-minute basis. Taking into account the Australian per-call connection fee, it's somewhat better than half the Australian rate for shorter calls. The balance shifts slightly worse for USA customers -- but depending on the plan, possibly still better than in Australia -- as the call gets longer.
If, on average, you spend about half your airtime originating calls, and you spend about half your airtime receiving calls, then overall you'll spend just about the same amount under the Australian system as you would under the USA system. On the other hand, if you spend most of your time originating calls, you're better off under the American system. If you spend most of your time receiving calls, you're better off under the Australian system.
As for text messages, it does seem weird to me. The per-message rate is about the same in the USA as it is in Australia, and yet it's charged double in the USA.
