A News.com reader writes: The Europeans have some good ideas we could use--if we could get ourselves to listen.
One thing that makes the cell phone so popular and affordable in Denmark--where I lived for three years--as well as other places in Europe, is the fact that the caller pays the charges. In Denmark, all the numbers to cell phones began with one of only two or three prefixes, making it easy to know that a person was calling to a cell phone. If you wanted to talk longer, you knew immediately that YOU were going to be paying the connection fee.
The phones were nearly a throwaway item, and phone cards were available just about anywhere for a very reasonable price. There was none of the confusion related to an overabundance of "calling plans" such as we see here in the United States. The Europeans have some good ideas we could use--if we could get ourselves to listen.
T. L. Rousseau
Warrenton, Va.