Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Landline users may face LD charges for cell calls

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2003 01:50:07 -0400

Susan Burgess: Landline users may face LD charges for
cell calls

Technology

By Susan Burgess BJ contributor
June 6, 2003

Starting this month, the expression "call me on my
cell phone" may not be a very popular request on
the Treasure Coast because when the recipient of
that message inspects his BellSouth phone bill, he
may well find unexpected long-distance charges.

"Calls from landline phones to wireless phones will
incur long-distance charges on the same basis as if
the call was placed from a landline phone to another landline
phone," said Brenda Heinrich, a vice president at U.S. Cellular.

She notified their customers by letter about the change. Other
companies are notifying their customers as well. Under the new
billing arrangements, if a salesman with a Stuart exchange on his
U.S. Cellular phone leaves a message asking a customer in St.
Lucie County to call him, the return call from the customer will be a
toll call if the customer is using a landline. In the past, that call
would have been free for the landline caller.

Mike Rogers, the company's sales manager in Florida, said they
were not happy about the change.

"Honestly, it's not beneficial to us to break up this relationship
(with BellSouth)," he said. "We really prefer not to do this. It will
increase our turnover."

Some Treasure Coast customers of other cell phone companies
also will be affected by new billing practices, although it may be
later than June. What's behind all this is a change in the way calls
from landline phones to wireless phones are billed. Free calling
areas for cell phones don't necessarily match up with free calling
areas for home and business phones.

In an area like the Treasure Coast, where it is long distance to call
from one county to another using a traditional phone, some cell
phone customers were given two-county free calling zones by
their cell phone carriers. To make life easier for anyone calling a
cell phone from a regular telephone, the long-distance charge was
billed to the cell phone company instead of to the landline caller's
phone bill.

The agreement between the companies was called "reverse toll
billing."

Plenty of finger-pointing

With reverse toll billing, the cell phone company paid a wholesale
rate for the toll call. But when it ends, landline customers will pay a
retail rate. Figuring out why this is happening and who will be
affected by this change in the way calls are billed is a lot like trying
to bail out an ocean liner with a leaky tin can.

Cell phone companies say the wireline phone companies are
ending the agreements. The wireline companies say the Federal
CommunicationsCommission did it. The FCC says they had nothing
to do with it. The state's Public Service Commission no longer
regulates BellSouth's rates, so they say they are out of the loop
entirely.

Katherine McKenzie, regional spokeswoman for BellSouth, said
the phone company didn't request the change; the cell phone
companies did, she said. "The wireless companies had, in the past,
absorbed those costs and have chosen now not to do so."

Reverse toll billing is used by all wireless phone companies in
various locations around the nation. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint,
Nextel, U.S. Cellular, Cingular and T-Mobile all have or had them
in some areas of the country. Each carrier has its own timetable
for ending reverse billing.

For U.S. Cellular in Florida, the end comes in June. For Verizon in
Florida, it's October. For AT&T, the date has not been set. AT&T
Wireless has a reverse toll billing arrangement for its cell phone
customers in Okeechobee County.

"We'll be notifying our customers soon," said spokeswoman Kelly
Starling. "There is no date set yet for ending this arrangement,
but we plan to inform impacted customers via a bill message prior
to the reverse toll billing ending. Furthermore, we will have other
'truly local' phone number options available to these customers at
no charge."

U.S. Cellular has reverse toll billing for its St. Lucie County
customers because until recently, they had no exchanges at all for
St. Lucie County. Instead, customers were assigned a Stuart
exchange. They say they don't have customers in Okeechobee and
Indian River counties.

Because they are ending their reverse billing in June, U.S. Cellular
spokeswoman Deia Lofendo said they offered to give customers
local numbers if it would save their callers money.

They now have a 577 exchange available for their St. Lucie County
customers so that if most of their landline-to-wireless calls come
from St. Lucie, those calls will be free. Otherwise, the landline
phone would be charged a toll by BellSouth.

U.S. Cellular customers who work in more than one county and
frequently have people calling their cell phones from landlines will
have to decide whether to keep their current exchange or get a
different one.

A representative said Verizon tried but was unable to find a way
to keep reverse toll billing. Although they were not required to,
they sent the Public Service Commission a copy of their December
2002 letter to customers explaining the demise of reverse toll
billing.

Nextel has no reverse toll billing around here, according to Dave's
Communications, which sells Nextel service and products.

Sprint, T-Mobile and Cingular customers will have to call their
respective carriers to ask about reverse toll billing.

Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications &
Internet Association, said telephone companies began pushing to
end reverse billing two years ago. In some states they had to go
to their public utilities commission to get approval, but they don't
in Florida.

Hits aren't just fish

In less than three months, a new Web site selling fly-tying
materials and fishing trips has enjoyed more than 100,000 hits,
thanks to the talent and persistence of the site's owner.

Mark Ballard of Vero Beach put Shallow Minded Fishing &
Products on the Web at www.shallow-minded.com in March with
the help of Tim Duncklee at absolutenet.com

Ballard, a Florida native who was once an art director at America
Online and vice president/creative at Redgate Communications, is
now a full-time area fishing guide and owner of the Mirage fishing
boat named Shallow Minded.

"My wife says when I'm not taking people fishing, I'm fishing and
when I'm not fishing, I'm tying flies to go fishing and that makes
me very shallow minded. Plus most of my fishing is done in very
shallow water," Ballard said.

His background he says "helped some" when it came to
registering the site with search engines, he said.

"We've gotten many hits through constantly registering the site
with the major search engines and indexes and have utilized good
meta tags and descriptions," he said.

The site offers difficult-to-find fly tying materials, flies, accessories
and gifts and provides the ability to book guided fishing trips with
Ballard.

"We're offering some of the most unique fly-tying materials
available anywhere in the world," Ballard said. "The brand names
Polar Fibre, Slinky Fibre and Fluoro Fibre imported from South
Africa are world-renowned for their realistic baitfish appearance.
Many of the finest fly tiers in the world have been using these
materials for years.

http://www1.tcpalm.com/tcp/tbj_tech/article/0,1651,TCP_1220_2005906,00.html

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