NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Flat rate cellphone service - and more
> Bill Introduced To Let Robots Call Your Cellphone - The Consumerist
>
> http://j.mp/pZWrnd (Consumerist)
>
> "Last week, a bill was introduced to change that. While in the past
> email hoaxes have gone around saying that your cellphone could be
> opened up to telemarketers, HR 3035 seeks to let businesses contact
> your cellphone "for informational purposes.""
>
> - - -
>
> Can anyone cite statistics that agree with the statement made in
> support of this legislation that:
>
> "most wireless consumers are now covered by flat-rate plans"
I've never even been *offered* a flat-rate plan on Verizon. Oh, in effect, I pay a flat rate (because the number of minutes they bundle in on the smallest plan they allow for the phones I have exceeds my usage almost all the time) - but that's *not* a flat rate. There have been months when I've gone over the limit - and then any calls I receive cost me per minute. (It's meaningless to argue about whether any *particular* call was part of the base or was charged per minute - all I see is a total which, when it exceeds a threshold, costs extra.)
Now ... as long as we're opening this up for debate: "Flat rate" for Internet connections has basically disappeared as well. It's getting impossible to find a connection provider that doesn't impose caps. So unsolicited email should be subject to the same limits as unsolicited faxes and calls to cell phones have been.
Actually, the argument gets interesting if you look, not at email - which tends to consume relatively few bytes - but at ads. Granted, in some sense you consent to see ads when you go to a web page - though if you've been mislead into going there, it's a different story. Even assuming consent, with the ever-more-fancy graphics in ads, they are beginning to use up noticeable pieces of people's caps. Its not hard to imagine a day when people start pushing back on what has been the economic basis of almost all Internet business.
-- Jerry