Tariff models

When cellular telecoms services were launched, phones and calls were very expensive and early mobile operators (carriers) decided to charge for all air time consumed by the mobile phone user. This resulted in the concept of charging callers for outbound calls and also for receiving calls. As mobile phone call charges diminished and phone adoption rates skyrocketed, more modern operators decided not to charge for incoming calls. Thus some markets have "Receiving Party Pays" models (or, more correctly, "Mobile Party Pays"), in which both outbound and received calls are charged, and other markets have "Calling Party Pays" models, by which only making calls produces costs, and receiving calls is free. An exception to this are international roaming tariffs, by which receiving calls are normally also charged.[citation needed]
The European market adopted a "Calling Party Pays" model throughout the GSM environment and soon various other GSM markets also started to emulate this model. As Receiving Party Pays systems have the undesired effect of phone owners keeping their phones turned off to avoid receiving unwanted calls, the total voice usage rates (and profits) in Calling Party Pays countries outperform those in Receiving Party Pays countries. Consequently, most countries previously with Receiving Party Pays models have either abandoned them or employed alternative marketing methods, such as massive voice call buckets, to avoid the problem of phone users keeping phones turned off.[citation needed]


In most countries today, including European Union nations, United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Turkey, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, Pakistan, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India,[21] Maldives, Malaysia, Peru, South Africa, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan the person receiving a mobile phone call pays nothing. However, in Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States, one can be charged per minute. In the United States, a few carriers are beginning to offer unlimited received phone calls. For the Chinese mainland, it was reported that both of its two operators will adopt the caller-pays approach as early as January 2007