The End of Untimed Phone Calls ?

There was a time when having a private telephone connected to your home was seen as an indulgence. Common folk made their calls from the public telephone boxes dotted about city streets. Local calls were untimed, but if you needed to call someone outside of your city or country town it involved using the dreaded "Trunk Line "network.

All trunk calls were booked in three minute segments and were increasingly expensive in relation to the distance involved.  The telephonist would break in and ask  "Are you extending "-  and such calls were usually restricted to announcing the birth off a new baby, a death in the family - or to deliver a birthday greeting.   They did not encourage long conversations.

When automation entered the picture thousands of female telephonists across the country lost their jobs and we found ourselves able to dial numbers directly.  "Trunk "call rates dropped precipitously and we entered the era of being able to dial up telephones in other world countries, but local calls within our local area remained untimed and at a fixed rate.

Then came the miracle of the mobile phone - with the first ones about the size of a house brick. All their calls were timed and distance was no longer an obstacle.  Many dispensed with a home telephone altogether and today the home phone is fast becoming the preserve of the elderly, and it seems that the government is considering a request from the phone companies to end the era of untimed local calls.

That prospect opens an interesting can of worms.   Local calls are charged at twenty two cents each and obviously suit the people who engage in very long conversations on a regular basis, but the vast majority of calls are short - and if this timing option is allowed it is likely that the base rate will drop sharply.   The biggest challenge will be to condition elderly users to a timing charge replacing unrestricted phone time.

It will certainly have a vast bearing on the service level most merchants have in answering calls from their customers.  An increasing number of business houses greet incoming calls with a recorded message which invites the customer to select from a list of servicing options by pressing keyboard buttons - and then announces that all their representatives are engaged on calls - and that they have been placed in a queue.   It is not uncommon for that wait to extend to ten - fifteen -  twenty - and even forty minutes.   It is unlikely that many elderly people - aware that they are now on a timed call - will tolerate that level of disservice !

It is astonishing that firms that spend millions on corporate advertising to entice customers to make contact then treat them with indifference. In most cases there is a long wait - irrespective of the time of day called - and it is obvious that the facilities for processing sales enquiries are lacking.  What enrages many people - but is tolerated on the basis of an untimed call - will result in hangup if the potential customer knows that the call is steadily ticking up a charge on the phone bill.

The government is considering this timing charge request with great caution.  The fixed rate for local phone calls came into force when the entire telephone system in Australia was in the hands of the Postmaster Generals Department ( PMG ).  It is now entirely in the private sector and a vast array of "bundling " mixes all forms of electronic communications - including access to the Internet - in plans with a variety of cost options.

Just as the mail service has seen a sharp increase in "Return Postage Paid " envelopes encouraging customer participation, it is likely that if time calls are permitted to local calls there will be a similar increase in toll free numbers offered by commercial firms.

Considering that the entire phone system is now an integrated automatic labyrinth of interconnectivity it is hard to see how timed or untimed local calls make much difference !