Thread

Ask HN: Hypothesis: Cellular providers are deprioritizing voice calls?

21 points · 49 comments · tkdb

SnorkelTan · 1790375032 · focus · HN ↗
They should remove unlimited voice calls and make everyone using the phone network pay by the minute. It would eliminate robodialing instantly.
1. what · 1790375912 · focus · HN ↗
  I wish they would bring back prepaid/pay as you go service. I want a number where I can receive/send an occasional call or text without having to pay a monthly contract.
  1. drewnick · 1790376999 · focus · HN ↗
    tello gets you close in the US, a few dollars a month minimum ($5 maybe?) I use it on my burner flip phone.
    what · 1790386394 · focus · HN ↗
    Still, you used to be able to preload $5 of minutes/sms onto a phone and it would last until you used it up. I don’t want a monthly fee.
    [deleted] · 1790449487 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  2. fhdkweig · 1790378339 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm still on tracfone. Started their service around 2010 and other than a janky website, the phone service is fine. The phones are cheap (I think mine was sub $80) and use a $99 per year "PLAN" card that gets 400 minutes, 400 texts, 1.5 GB data that triples to 1200/1200/4.5GB because it is a smartphone.
    what · 1790386229 · focus · HN ↗
    >$99/year
    Still too high for a phone number I expect to get an sms per day.
    questionableans · 1790386899 · focus · HN ↗
    If you just need to receive an SMS but don’t actually need a cellular network, Google Voice is free.
    If you can stomach $3/mo + tax (totaling a little over $40/year), UltraMobile PayGo is the cheapest consumer option I’ve seen. It’s a T-Mobile owned MVNO. It comes with 100MB, 100 minutes and 100 text messages per month, and is pay as you go after that.
    Past that, I’d look into IoT cellular options.
  3. iknowstuff · 1790379509 · focus · HN ↗
    That very much does exist still? <a href="https://reddit.com/r/nocontract" rel="nofollow">https://reddit.com/r/nocontract
    what · 1790386154 · focus · HN ↗
    No, pay as you go. I want to put $5 and pay whatever per minute/sms until it runs out.
    drivingmenuts · 1790391397 · focus · HN ↗
    Then you'll have to be the change you want to see in the world. Otherwise, it's not coming back because it gives accountants, executives and investors nightmares about the bottom line.
    what · 1790459685 · focus · HN ↗
    This doesn’t make sense. Are you suggesting I start a telecom so I can offer pay as you go?
    drivingmenuts · 1790654968 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes.
    Alternately, you can bribe/buy enough legislators to get them to enact laws allowing/requiring pay-as-you-go plans, but if you have the money to do that, you might as well just form a company so you can do it at scale.
    toast0 · 1790615405 · focus · HN ↗
    The voip provider I use charges about $1/month for a (US/CA) phone number and $1.50/month for e911 service; my voip provider charges me $10 or $25 or something when the balance is low. A large cell phone company may have somewhat lower costs for those services, but I think the pricing floor is probably $3/month that has to come from somewhere.
    T-Mobile used to have a plan for you, but they stopped offering it to new customers in 2014; it does have a yearly minimum, but once you added $100 in topups, the minimum was $10/year; I think my mom must have more minutes than she'll ever use, but she still has to add ~ 100 minutes per year. Similarly, I had a SIM from virgin mobile UK that I got in 2008 that would stay active as long as it had activity, which included receiving SMS (which was free!). I doubt those are still available either and mine lapsed when I stopped using the SIM as the phone I had it in was 2G only and I lost coverage.
  4. sitzkrieg · 1790382544 · focus · HN ↗
    mint is great (if you dont mind tmobile), hard to beat $15/m for unlimited txt talk. the base data has gone up a few gb 6? but i never really use it
    what · 1790386316 · focus · HN ↗
    It seems like everyone is missing the “pay as you go” aspect. I don’t want to pay $15/month. I want plop down $X and pay per minute/sms until it runs out.
2. [deleted] · 1790376286 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
3. goshx · 1790377439 · focus · HN ↗
  spam calls are not free, but the cost is very low.
4. autoexec · 1790377467 · focus · HN ↗
  telemarketers were a thing before cell phones and they weren't just calling homes in their local calling area. The economics must have made it worth their phone bills. I'm also not a fan of punishing everyone to make things a little harder for a small number of assholes.
5. DANmode · 1790565763 · focus · HN ↗
  So would a culture that forced unknown callers to leave a voicemail.

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