The rising cost of cell phone technology

Some cell phone customers have received letters about new fees. Only these fees arenâ€™t for the cell phone customers themselves, itâ€™s for the people who call them. <br><br>News on Six consumer reporter

Monday, November 11th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Some cell phone customers have received letters about new fees. Only these fees arenâ€™t for the cell phone customers themselves, itâ€™s for the people who call them.

News on Six consumer reporter Rick Wells went in search of the answers to a few of your questions.

Many Cingular Wireless customers have received this letter and have asked the News on Six what it means. The letter announces changes coming for some landline or wire line calls to cellular phones. It says some wire line calls to cell phones may incur a toll charge for what was previously a free call.

And the letter says those changes are coming as soon as the 24th of this month. And they might, until now wireless companies purchased from SBC Southwestern Bell Area Wide Calling Plans. Those plans permitted a free call to or from cell phones within the area or in some cases nation wide, thatâ€™s all changing.

We've tried to anticipate some of your questions: So the question is, â€œis Southwestern Bell gonna charge me by the minute or a flat fee per toll call?" The charge for toll calls from wire line phones to cell phone will be the same as wire line to wire line, by the minute.

"Is this gonna effect in coming calls to my cell phone from wire line phones only or will it effect call from my cell phone to wire line phones too?" It affects only wire line calls to cell phones.

"Does this apply to all cell phone companies or just some cell phone companies?" It doesn't apply to all cell companies, because all of them don't purchase those area wide calling plans. But lots do and SWB is working out scheduling details with all of them and within the next year these changes will become effective.

"What about companies with nationwide plans are they affected by this too?" Yes if they purchase those plans from landline service providers. But here are two important factors. Your cell phone service should not be affected. It's only those callers from landline or wire line phones who will notice the difference.

Once the changes are implemented, if a toll is going to be charged the callers will get a message requiring them to dial one plus the area code. That's the signal there will be a charge for the call.