Mobile telephony is a phenomenon that exploded within Malta within the past decade. It rocketed to popularity and, as with any service that is considered of essence to ourselves, we have been moaning about it ever since. First it was the failings in the mobile telephony network infrastructure, then it was the expensive rates – having at one time been relatively amongst the most pricey in Europe, and then there were the pricey roaming rates for calls across boundaries.

Today I would like to add another one to the list – forced consumption. No, no telephony representatives are looming over your shoulder to dial a number or have you dial a number without your consent. I do however speak of the window system that mobile telephony companies use.

A time window is a set period of time. In mobile telephony, such as with GO, for every top-up card you purchase and consume your window is extended by a number of days relative to the value purchased, such as 90 days for a € 5.00 (less VAT) top up card. Should you have a single Euro cent or a thousand Euros stashed within your mobile phone at the end of your window, you lose your right to use your money until you purchase more call value and the consequent time window extension attached to it.

I personally consider it a highly questionable practice for a person to sell a usable product and impose a time-limit for consumption. The effect of the imposition of time-windows is effectively forced consumption as the mobile telephony companies set an invisible line in the sand representing a sales quota. The best way to make a sales quota in the absence of a truly open market is to impose restrictions that require a repeated purchase, which is a little like a car dealer selling you a synthetic fuel that becomes unusable if not topped up by a particular fuel station every few weeks (it is the concept, not the realism, that is important here).

Needless to say any such time window system is an imposition upon any and all individuals who watch the pennies when using a mobile phone, those who avoid using it for anything but emergencies or those who believe that less is more. Certain portions of the elderly could very well be amongst this population of conservative telephony users but any individual who does not feel wealthy enough to splash out on telephony is a candidate to hit this wall straight-on. And then, in the dead of night, when the vehicle sputters out and they reach for the dusty old mobile that they had invested some € 50.00 (less VAT) over the previous years and used very little, when they try to dial a family number to get some assistance the voice on the other side of the line odiously informs them that they either have no credit or their time window has expired. Such individuals are denied access to their own funds within the situations for which that they specifically invested money in it.

Needless to say I urge the telephony companies, both GO and Vodafone, to discard this insidious practice and to, for just once, place the consumers before the profit margin. Ironing out such ethical deficiencies is a lot more important than spamming the SMS in-box with all these special offers of how to save money spending more within one’s window. The responsible penny-savers will thank you for it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 8:06 pm and is filed under Local Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.