I'm a retired telecom engineer (just a few years retired). We used to say that well over 50% of the bill my company was getting from the telcos was the cost of the bill itself. It's expensive for telcos to create bills and send them out to customers, regardless of whether they are actually doing per-unit billing. Clearly, some warped instruction to the customer service folks was an attempt to save Verizon that cost.
Having said that, to refuse an itemized bill to a customer is just wrong. The other thing we realized over the years was if we DIDN'T ask for a detailed bill (preferably electronic - you can imagine the size of a paper bill for a large multinational) we usually ended up paying much more than we needed to be paying. We actually used companies who analyzed our telco bills for errors, saving us much more than the actual cost of the service.
After a while, we just agreed with the telco to chop a fixed percentage off every bill, and call it good. it fascinates me that some people will just pay their bill without actually looking at the details.
The thing is, once you have tried one, you want to do it again and again. They are FUN, and after a while feel so natural that you forget that you are riding around on an expensive piece of equipment.
I think a good number of the people who ride them in those rental-tour things would say they would buy one, then you tell them how much they cost...
That's the deal - there would've been a lot more penetration had the price been reasonable. The average person would rather walk than buy something for $5,000 that basically replaces walking (or perhaps biking). How many people would be willing to spend $5,000 on a bike?
I'm one of those grey matter guys (the hair, not the stuff under it) who thought that video conferencing was going to take the world by storm. Everyone would be asking Uhura to put the calls up on the video screen and every meeting room would have a screen at the end that extended into another meeting room on the other side of the world. Every PC would have a camera on top.
I enthusiastically installed my first PictureTel system in 1989, to a somewhat lukewarm reception. Tried to get people to use various iterations of video conferencing ever since. Just didn't happen.
Perhaps now with Skype video chat things will change, but I'm not waiting around for it. I'm retiring, but I am taking my webcam with me.
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Understandable, in a warped sort of way. But still wrong.
I'm a retired telecom engineer (just a few years retired). We used to say that well over 50% of the bill my company was getting from the telcos was the cost of the bill itself. It's expensive for telcos to create bills and send them out to customers, regardless of whether they are actually doing per-unit billing. Clearly, some warped instruction to the customer service folks was an attempt to save Verizon that cost.
Having said that, to refuse an itemized bill to a customer is just wrong. The other thing we realized over the years was if we DIDN'T ask for a detailed bill (preferably electronic - you can imagine the size of a paper bill for a large multinational) we usually ended up paying much more than we needed to be paying. We actually used companies who analyzed our telco bills for errors, saving us much more than the actual cost of the service.
After a while, we just agreed with the telco to chop a fixed percentage off every bill, and call it good. it fascinates me that some people will just pay their bill without actually looking at the details.
If you have ever tried one...
The thing is, once you have tried one, you want to do it again and again. They are FUN, and after a while feel so natural that you forget that you are riding around on an expensive piece of equipment.
I think a good number of the people who ride them in those rental-tour things would say they would buy one, then you tell them how much they cost...
That's the deal - there would've been a lot more penetration had the price been reasonable. The average person would rather walk than buy something for $5,000 that basically replaces walking (or perhaps biking). How many people would be willing to spend $5,000 on a bike?
Video Conferencing
I'm one of those grey matter guys (the hair, not the stuff under it) who thought that video conferencing was going to take the world by storm. Everyone would be asking Uhura to put the calls up on the video screen and every meeting room would have a screen at the end that extended into another meeting room on the other side of the world. Every PC would have a camera on top.
I enthusiastically installed my first PictureTel system in 1989, to a somewhat lukewarm reception. Tried to get people to use various iterations of video conferencing ever since. Just didn't happen.
Perhaps now with Skype video chat things will change, but I'm not waiting around for it. I'm retiring, but I am taking my webcam with me.