11:26 pm
Just confirmed with Customer Service: airetime starts counting once you push the "send" button or your phone begins to ring with an incoming call. 🙁 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.....t_Wireless
That is really awful!
Although, Fido and Rogers apparently start counting the time on successful outgoing calls when "Send" is pressed as well.
However, if it's true that 7-Eleven charges for unsuccessful outgoing calls (where you hang up before even voice mail picks up) or ringing time on an incoming call, I'd be pretty pissed off... perhaps pissed off enough to encourage people to leave the service!
Although, what alternative do we have? Perhaps Petro-Canada's service?
3:01 am
PetroCanada (also provided by Ztar) presumably has the same policy as SpeakOut. Aparently there is no charge if the incoming call is not answered AND no voice message was left. http://howardforums.com/showth.....;t=1228508
OTOH, a poster in another forum also had this experience: a voice message was left on her account (thus airtime deducted), but the same amount was later credited.
Perhaps someone else could phone up Customer Service and confirm -- I've called them enough times today. 😉
12:43 am
If you read the fine print in the Speakout manual (Terms and Conditions), it states that chargeable time begins for outgoing calls when you press the Send button. Further down, it says that if more than 30 seconds passes or you connect then the first minute is charged. So, if the other phone is not picked up AND you disconnect before 30 seconds passes, you will not get charged.
4:42 pm
There seems to be confusion/discrepancy on how the airtime is calculated. This is my short 2 weeks experience so far.
Calls:
Outgoing: charge startswhen send is pressed
Incoming: when ring more than 30 sec or when call is picked up. (I have not tried pressing end to drop the call while ringing)
Text Message:
Outgoing: 5 cents as stated
Incoming: free
I'm located in Vancouver area. Not sure if it makes a difference. I would like to see other people's experience with the billing too.
12:05 am
I just called customer service to ask about when the airtime charge starts and about the 30-second thingy.
There's no point in repeating what she said, because she wasn't 100% sure about how everything worked. That is, she was quite sure about how things were supposed to be charged according to the literature, but she didn't think that was how things were actually being charged.
In fact, at one point, she said that she had a Rogers phone and she proceeded to tell me how Rogers charges for airtime, then she said that Speakout probably charges the same way since they are just using Rogers service.
Yep, too funny.