Just took a look at my most recent phone bill. Lots of calls across Europe, to the USA. All virtually free.
69% of my phone bill comes from one call. Of the 2 hours and 15 minutes I spent yakking on my PSTN phone, 8 minutes was spent talking to the US Embassy's premium rate enquiries number.
So I'd like to modify a previous claim I made that the correct price of a phone call is zero. Instead I'd now claim that the correct price is zero as long as either no value is being exchanged (usually within a trust circle), or the value is uncorrelated with who initiated the call.
The overt and covert premium rate numbers are likely to occupy an increasing proportion of our "information services" bills, even if hidden as connectivity charges.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 2:18 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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