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The Ethics of Free Cellphone Calls
When I last wrote about the quest to get free phone calls forever, a number of readers wrote to point out a very sneaky trick that lets you achieve that frugal heaven — even from your cellphone. Yes, it’s a way to get free cellphone calls, without listening to an ad, without being in Wi-Fi, without using any minutes.
The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
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The trick relies on a handy feature of Google Voice: you can place outgoing calls through Google instead of your phone company. You do that by dialing your own Google Voice phone number and, at the menu prompt, pressing 2. Then dial the number.
Ordinarily, this feature doesn’t save you much when you use a cellphone. You’re still using airtime minutes, after all.
It’s more often used with a landline to make free long-distance calls. Your own Google Voice number is always a local call; when you dial it and press 2, you’re letting Google carry your call the rest of the way.
But there’s a sneaky side effect of this feature. Certain calling plans from Verizon and AT&T let you set up five or 10 phone numbers — your most frequently called numbers. All calls, at all hours, to or from these numbers are free. They can be landlines, cellphones, phones on other networks, doesn’t matter. (AT&T’s program is called the A-List. Verizon’s is called Friends and Family. T-Mobile and Sprint have eliminated these “calling circle” plans, pointing out that their unlimited calling programs render them redundant.)
To make this work, you register your own Google Voice number as one of your A-list or Friends and Family numbers. Then, guess what? If you’re willing to go to the trouble of dialing your own number, waiting for the prompt, hitting 2, and then dialing the number you really want, then, yes, you get a free cellphone call. You’ll never be billed for any minutes at all. (Lifehacker.com was one of the first Web sites to detail this method.)
Now, you know my feelings about cellphone companies. I think they’re prone to egregious greed and gouging. They charge both the sender and the recipient of each text message. They don’t lower our monthly bills once our subsidized phone is paid off (except T-Mobile).
Nevertheless, this way of fighting back is cheating. There’s nothing technically illegal about it; it’s clearly an unintended loophole. But you aren’t paying for the calls. (It may help explain why Sprint and T-Mobile did away with those Fave Five-type programs.)
Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that at least some of the cellphone companies are working to lower your bills without making you resort to hacks like this one. Just this week, AT&T announced that from now on, new and existing AT&T customers get free calls to any cellphone in America. Not just A-list numbers, not just AT&T phones — any cellphone on any carrier, any time of day, all free. You don’t pay anything more; the only requirement is AT&T’s unlimited texting plan, at $20 a month or $30 for families. (Sprint, of course, pioneered the free-calls-to-cellphones concept — but you pay $20 more a month for those plans.)
That, AT&T, is an excellent value proposition. Thanks.
Your HONEST customer,
David
When I last wrote about the quest to get free phone calls forever, a number of readers wrote to point out a very sneaky trick that lets you achieve that frugal heaven — even from your cellphone. Yes, it’s a way to get free cellphone calls, without listening to an ad, without being in Wi-Fi, without using any minutes.
The Times’s technology columnist, David Pogue, keeps you on top of the industry in his free, weekly e-mail newsletter.
Sign up | See Sample
The trick relies on a handy feature of Google Voice: you can place outgoing calls through Google instead of your phone company. You do that by dialing your own Google Voice phone number and, at the menu prompt, pressing 2. Then dial the number.
Ordinarily, this feature doesn’t save you much when you use a cellphone. You’re still using airtime minutes, after all.
It’s more often used with a landline to make free long-distance calls. Your own Google Voice number is always a local call; when you dial it and press 2, you’re letting Google carry your call the rest of the way.
But there’s a sneaky side effect of this feature. Certain calling plans from Verizon and AT&T let you set up five or 10 phone numbers — your most frequently called numbers. All calls, at all hours, to or from these numbers are free. They can be landlines, cellphones, phones on other networks, doesn’t matter. (AT&T’s program is called the A-List. Verizon’s is called Friends and Family. T-Mobile and Sprint have eliminated these “calling circle” plans, pointing out that their unlimited calling programs render them redundant.)
To make this work, you register your own Google Voice number as one of your A-list or Friends and Family numbers. Then, guess what? If you’re willing to go to the trouble of dialing your own number, waiting for the prompt, hitting 2, and then dialing the number you really want, then, yes, you get a free cellphone call. You’ll never be billed for any minutes at all. (Lifehacker.com was one of the first Web sites to detail this method.)
Now, you know my feelings about cellphone companies. I think they’re prone to egregious greed and gouging. They charge both the sender and the recipient of each text message. They don’t lower our monthly bills once our subsidized phone is paid off (except T-Mobile).
Nevertheless, this way of fighting back is cheating. There’s nothing technically illegal about it; it’s clearly an unintended loophole. But you aren’t paying for the calls. (It may help explain why Sprint and T-Mobile did away with those Fave Five-type programs.)
Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that at least some of the cellphone companies are working to lower your bills without making you resort to hacks like this one. Just this week, AT&T announced that from now on, new and existing AT&T customers get free calls to any cellphone in America. Not just A-list numbers, not just AT&T phones — any cellphone on any carrier, any time of day, all free. You don’t pay anything more; the only requirement is AT&T’s unlimited texting plan, at $20 a month or $30 for families. (Sprint, of course, pioneered the free-calls-to-cellphones concept — but you pay $20 more a month for those plans.)
That, AT&T, is an excellent value proposition. Thanks.
Your HONEST customer,
David