Major US Carriers Open Free Calls And Texts To Brussels (androidheadlines.com) 58
An anonymous reader quotes from a report on AndroidHeadlines: Following the attacks at Brussels International Airport and the Maelbeek Subway Station in Brussels, Belgium earlier this morning, all four major U.S. carriers have announced that they will be offering their customers the opportunity to make free calls to Brussels, as a means of letting customers keep in contact with friends and loved ones who live or are traveling within the city, a gesture which both Verizon and Sprint offered to customers last year following the attacks in Paris, France. As the city of Brussels begins and continues to mourn in the wake of the attacks, Sprint, T-Mobile, ATT, and Verizon Wireless will all offer free calls and texts to Brussels from the U.S., beginning today and lasting throughout the next few days to a week.
Just Brussels? (Score:4, Informative)
Brussels is not a country (as some Americans think) but a city. Not sure how they differentiate calls to 'Brussels' (old area code 02) from calls to Belgium (+32) since 'area codes' there have been portable for at least a decade and most of them are on mobile phones (area code 04).
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Each carrier will be offering something slightly different, with AT&T making calls to Belgium originating from the U.S. free for their wireless customers as well as their wireline customers, including both postpaid and GoPhone customers for mobile, and calls will be free from today through March 28th. For T-Mobile, who just recently announced they would be making calls free as well, Simple Choice Postpaid customers will be able to call to Belgium from the U.S. from today through March 25th without being charged. T-Mobile is also crediting their customers for calls made to Turkey in the wake of the attacks there, beginning from March 19th and lasting through today.
Sprint will also be allowing customers to make free calls and send free texts to Belgium, and this includes all of their customers on Sprint, Boost Mobile, and Virgin Mobile USA, but they will also be waiving fees for customers who make calls or send texts from Belgium as well, with the charge waiver lasting through March 31st which gives customers a few extra days. Lastly, Verizon Wireless is also offering free calls and texts to Belgium from the U.S. for both their mobile and landline customers, with mobile customers able to make calls and send texts free of charge today and tomorrow, while landline customers can place calls free of charge on these same dates. They are also offering free calls to Turkey, and will be crediting both wireless and landline customers for calls and texts to Turkey from March 19th and March 20th.
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(as some Americans think)
There's no need to be an asshole.
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I live in Grimbergen, work in Brussels. The Caller ID on my parent's phone in the US knows which city I'm calling from, so I suppose it must be possible somehow. To be frank, though, international calls US and Brussels are only like $0.20 a minute on the most expensive plans, many plans have them for less than $0.01. It's a pretty empty empty gesture, but at least it's a gesture.
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Brussels is not a country (as some Americans think) but a city.
A few things -
1. Most Americans know it is a city. Some of us have "gasp" actually been there.
2. You are truly an asshole. Trying to score "anti-American hipster cred" by using a tragedy is disgusting.
3. The Belgians deserve better than to have you among them (yes, I noticed your e-mail domain).
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1) most Americans don't even know their own country; plenty of people I talk to think Brussels is a country or encompasses Belgium. Even the (very sloppy) reporting seems to conflate the two. Looking into it, it's all of Belgium although this particular article says Brussels which means neither the "journalist" nor the editors seem to have a clue what the difference is.
2) it's anti-American to point out huge flaws in your education system? Muslims and Christians have the same mindset as you in that sense, i
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife is a high school teacher in Brussels, College Saint Pierre (Jette). Every yearI go to her classes once sobthe kids can hear a native English speaker. The exercise I do is to have the kids fill out a questionaire. Almost never do they know the country with the largest English speaking population (it's India, but the most popular answer is always England). Every year some cannot place the US on the map.
They are graduating students in their last year. I think Europeans like you overestimate the quality
No, Utah (Score:2)
Major US Carriers Open Free Calls And Texts To Brussels. All your calls and texts will be rerouted to Utah, though, with no chance of them arriving at Brussels.
Calls from Brussels will be changed at roaming rat (Score:2)
Calls from Brussels will be changed at roaming rate unless they also say both ways. and you may have to pay for incoming txts.
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Yeah, with all the collateral damage, there will be lots of roaming rats.
Meanwhile in Brussels ... (Score:3, Informative)
...people are encouraged to minimize (cell)phone usage because the networks are overloaded.
Which providers went under? (Score:1)
The most interesting question, though, would be to know which service providers went under. I am on Mobile Vikings, an MVNO that resells the BASE network. I had no issue sending or receiving calls, texts or data all day, even though I avoided it; the guy next to me on Mobistar lost service around 10.00. We were in the downtown area around 1KM from Maelbeek. I've heard other people on the outskirts of the city lost all service from 8.30 until late this evening. My hypothesis is that since BASE has fewer sub
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Surge pricing! That's the spirit!
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Yet Internet is "free" (Score:2)
Email, texts, video chats are all "free" when travelling through the Internet, but standard long distance telephone calls are charged by the minute.
And in most cases they travel through the same gear on the way from origin to destination.
Why is is that they can get away with charging for long distance telephone service as a separate line item at all? Is it just because people are used to the idea? Crank Crank Crank... "Hello, Mabel? Please ring George at the corner store."
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Why is is that they can get away with charging for long distance telephone service as a separate line item at all?
Because people have no choice. All the carriers charge the fees. In theory, these charges would be competed away as they lowered prices to get or protect market share. But all the carriers have significant share ownership from the same investment banks and mutual funds, these organizations control many board seats, and they are opposed to competitive practices which would reduce aggregate profit.
Walloon (Score:2)
Does this mean I can order waffles and it won't cost me anything?
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Yes. Dial any number in Brussels, speak your order into the phone, and the NSA will be around in a few minutes with their delivery van.
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To insure quicker service, please order in Arabic.
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They are not just Syrian refugees. Plenty of them go back and forth to be trained by ISIS. In that sense a large portion of them are invaders. There is no way to make peace with Muslims unless you are willing to accept Sharia "law" for all.
And it's only Germany that has a brief history of packing up and executing their own people, not any immigrants. Europe and in particular Belgium is way too accepting of these refugees. For decades they have allowed them to come in and make use of the established social s
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The real refugees are running from the very same people that are blowing things up. They're not the problem. The problem is that there is no way to distinguish between those running from the chaos, and those running in to start the chaos.
So at some point it comes down to deciding who will pay the price of the instability in the Middle East -- the people who live there want to get away from it, but the problems sneak in amongst them. So do we turn everyone back and watch them die, or do we let them in and ge
Re: I don't care about the Brussels terrorist atta (Score:1)
Only Germany, comrade?
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Russia/USSR has never been part of Europe/EU or any of its precursors. They're part of Asia geographically and have always remained separate both economically and politically.
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They are not just Syrian refugees. Plenty of them go back and forth to be trained by ISIS. In that sense a large portion of them are invaders. There is no way to make peace with Muslims unless you are willing to accept Sharia "law" for all.
What a load of nonsense. The refugees are not the ones travelling to Syria to fight, they are the ones travelling out of Syria.
The main problem in Belgian are second generation immigrants, the children of immigrants that moved there 30+ years ago. Kids who feel marginalized and have a romantized idea of their home from their parents, so they travel back to fight for ISIS, until they realise it sucks ass and comes back. A few come back really nutters though and commit terrorism.
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Alte
Cat Got My Tounge (Score:1)
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Calls to Brussels are cheap, anyways. (Score:2)
Not that I think it's a bad idea, or anything -- It's just not as big a deal as it might seem, unless you compare this to their nor
Re: collusion (Score:1)
Only to inflate prices, I believe
Re: collusion (Score:1)
(or break competition, end goal the same)