In Czechia I get about 10 a year. Hardly what I'd call a big problem... My grandparents in canada get about 10 a day. My grandpa in the us got like 10 an hour before he died, many time live humans who knew his name and that he was an old man in a nursing home....
This exact claim gets made in every single robocall conversation on HN. I've never looked, maybe it's always the same people making it? Pretty soon someone else from Germany will be along to tell you about how many robocalls they get. And someone from the US will mention they also get no robocalls.
And as an American who lives in the UK, I always make the exact same response, and I'm continually surprised that people still don't understand.
In the US, the person receiving the call / text pays for the airtime to the cell phone. So sending out a million text messages costs almost nothing, because the expensive part is borne by the receivers.
In the UK and EU, the person sending the call / text pays for the airtime to the cell phone. This price is defined by a government regulator is owed by the sender's network to the owner of the cell tower.
So if some random person sends a text to me, and I'm using an O2 tower, that person has to pay O2 something like £0.20; meaning to send a million text messages would cost you £200k.
The result is that I do get spam messages, but they're always far more directed: normally organizations that I've actually interacted with in the past. Sending a message to a thousand previous customers is a lot more cost-effective (I presume) than sending a message to tens of millions of random phone numbers.
Ironically, the absolute easiest way to solve the US's spam call/text problem is actually market-based: make the caller pay for the entire path of the call, all the way to the receiver.
Normally it's American exceptionalism — assuming the USA is better than every other country. I think this is the first time I've seen someone assuming that since America has a problem, other countries must have it too.
No, it's true, I was surprised to get a robocall a few months ago, because it was the first ever (I think) and I have had my number since >10 years now. It's just not a thing here, I've never heard anyone complain about robocalls.
It's only a couple of years ago that I learned that "robocalls", which I'd seen mentioned for, what, a decade or more?, are actually fully robotic and not just a telemarketing department using an autodialer for more or less cold calls.
That's how weird this phenomenon is to a european. To me it was a solid "WTF?" moment. Since then I've wondered why I've never heard about US:ians tracking down these operations and destroying them.
I believe (historically at least), local calls in america were free - setting up a robocaller could take advantage of this - the only cost was energy. In the UK/EU the same calls would cost the robocaller money.
Similarly, I understand it is free to send SMS in the states, you pay to receive them. Again this is a cost in the UK - though with a headless mobile phone and a SIM with 'unlimited sms' this can be worked around, though the SIM need to be rotated.
SMS has been free for most people in the US for a long time now. For a while Europe was cheaper, but things have changed over the last 20 years, and they will continue to change. When SMS was cheaper in the EU, voice calls were vastly cheaper in the US, so when the EU would use SMS, the US would just make a voice call (at the time the US spent 2x as much for phone service, but used the phone 5x as much - I'm going to call that cheaper but you can read the numbers several ways).
Robo calls make sense in the US in part because we used the phone more (remember historic), and in part because "everyone" spoke English and so you could ignore language and reach a lot more people.
> I understand it is free to send SMS in the states, you pay to receive them.
That has not been true in many years. Most people have unlimited everything. Cost conscious consumers do opt for plans with limits, but that's on data, not calls and/or SMS.
> Again this is a cost in the UK - though with a headless mobile phone and a SIM with 'unlimited sms' this can be worked around, though the SIM need to be rotated.
The 2 scenarios seem to be:
1) SMS is included in the service. This makes sense. Original SMS were 0-cost to provide; they rode on existing control traffic.
2) Honest people pay per SMS. Spammers don't. As ever, this disproportionately effects honest poor people.
I don't have data, but it seems plausible that niche languages receive geometrically fewer attacks. I'm US, and looking at my call history 3/11 of the most recent inbound calls were spam which was correctly captured by google and I never saw it.
Consider yourself lucky. I too am in Germany and and I get calls on almost a daily basis. Robo and otherwise. Same with WhatsApp messages. I have my number for close to 20 years now though.
Unless this gets regulated Telcos will continue to enjoy their profits.
a few years ago i received a week of robo calls after renewing a domain lease. don't remember which registrar but i do remember that my number was redacted in the whois record and concluded that their process must be leaky. (also german)
"At the Federal Communications Committee, the loudest voices come from the telecommunications operators. There’s an imbalance in the control that the consumer ultimately has over who gets to invade their telephone versus these other interests."
I hope the modest amount of money it took to bribe the FCC commissioners is worth it to them. The FCC allowed 10 or 20 sociopaths to make modest amounts of money while ruining a communication network used by billions.
Because of the legal situation. In Germany commercial cold calling without consent is flat out banned and heavily fined. (up to tens of thousands in fines). I'm also German and had I think, one robocall in 20 years.
timthelion|1 year ago
This is %100 a North American problem.
rootusrootus|1 year ago
gwd|1 year ago
In the US, the person receiving the call / text pays for the airtime to the cell phone. So sending out a million text messages costs almost nothing, because the expensive part is borne by the receivers.
In the UK and EU, the person sending the call / text pays for the airtime to the cell phone. This price is defined by a government regulator is owed by the sender's network to the owner of the cell tower.
So if some random person sends a text to me, and I'm using an O2 tower, that person has to pay O2 something like £0.20; meaning to send a million text messages would cost you £200k.
The result is that I do get spam messages, but they're always far more directed: normally organizations that I've actually interacted with in the past. Sending a message to a thousand previous customers is a lot more cost-effective (I presume) than sending a message to tens of millions of random phone numbers.
Ironically, the absolute easiest way to solve the US's spam call/text problem is actually market-based: make the caller pay for the entire path of the call, all the way to the receiver.
Symbiote|1 year ago
shellfishgene|1 year ago
cess11|1 year ago
That's how weird this phenomenon is to a european. To me it was a solid "WTF?" moment. Since then I've wondered why I've never heard about US:ians tracking down these operations and destroying them.
atoav|1 year ago
ljf|1 year ago
Similarly, I understand it is free to send SMS in the states, you pay to receive them. Again this is a cost in the UK - though with a headless mobile phone and a SIM with 'unlimited sms' this can be worked around, though the SIM need to be rotated.
bluGill|1 year ago
Robo calls make sense in the US in part because we used the phone more (remember historic), and in part because "everyone" spoke English and so you could ignore language and reach a lot more people.
rootusrootus|1 year ago
That has not been true in many years. Most people have unlimited everything. Cost conscious consumers do opt for plans with limits, but that's on data, not calls and/or SMS.
WarOnPrivacy|1 year ago
> Again this is a cost in the UK - though with a headless mobile phone and a SIM with 'unlimited sms' this can be worked around, though the SIM need to be rotated.
The 2 scenarios seem to be:
1) SMS is included in the service. This makes sense. Original SMS were 0-cost to provide; they rode on existing control traffic.
2) Honest people pay per SMS. Spammers don't. As ever, this disproportionately effects honest poor people.
flerchin|1 year ago
Symbiote|1 year ago
Anyway, Britain and (as far as I know) Ireland also don't suffer from these robocalls.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...
codemusings|1 year ago
Unless this gets regulated Telcos will continue to enjoy their profits.
sambazi|1 year ago
erehweb|1 year ago
"At the Federal Communications Committee, the loudest voices come from the telecommunications operators. There’s an imbalance in the control that the consumer ultimately has over who gets to invade their telephone versus these other interests."
bediger4000|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
Barrin92|1 year ago
wetpaws|1 year ago
[deleted]