In short it is to with termination rates, area codes, and how people in the rest of the world get screwed but don't realise it.
Plus doesn't the US have hidden rates too? If I call someone on a landline and they're in the same city I pay less than if I call someone two cities over even though the two MIGHT have the same exact area code ("long distance").
> Cellular was easily rolled out without disruption. An existing number could switch to cellular and no one else would have to know or care. If you were a business (eg a plumber) you didn't have to worry about people calling you fretting over getting charged more for the call than your competitors.
> Numbers are easily portable. You can switch any number to use cellular. Countries using the other scheme can have portability but usually it is limited to cellular area codes only.
That's a non-issue. Call forwarding exists outside the US too(!). You can buy generic numbers, or a landline that forwards to your cellphone (or rings at both).
But ultimately your entire argument is defeated by one fact: In the US when a telemarketer calls you YOU pay for the pleasure. You're literally paying for people to spam or hassle you.
That's why so many free conference call places were in Iowa. They were exploiting the 5 cent tariffs Iowa had published in combination with people expecting all of the US to cost the same. Big carriers stopped terminating the calls, but the FCC slapped them back and insisted they had to terminate such calls.
Landline to landline, yes. This got me when we moved back to Georgia 14 years ago. Friends in the 229 area code that lived 50 miles away in one direction, local, 50 miles in another, long distance.
However, for cellular (now) you pay by minutes, and, as far as I can tell, unless you're hitting 900 numbers or similar, a minute is a minute, local or long distance. I have never had my own landline so I don't know the current status there, and most people I know with one only use it for security systems (so they can get away with the cheapest $10 or $20/month plan with no long distance).
The UK is also complicated - eg if a number starts with 08.
There aren't hidden rates. You are applying a British mentality - that the area code defines an area. In the US it is the exchange numbers (next 3 digits after the area code). It used to be normal to not dial area codes. I got bitten by this exact issue the first time I made a "local" call from a hotel, arguing with the front desk that a call to the same area code is by definition the same (local) area.
There are actually 3 distances - local, local toll, and long distance. You can actually have a different carrier for each one! For example local is a few miles around, local toll would be 20-100 miles away, and long distance after that. (Americans like things complicated.) When I had a land line it was about 5 times as much to call San Francisco (~60 miles away) than New York (~2,000 miles away)!
Local calls are included with your service price, also called "free" by people. However the base service price was about four times what I paid in the UK. There was a wonderful paper I saw years ago and haven't been able to find again, where they showed that Americans preferred fixed pricing - ie you know in advance what your bill will be - versus a pay as you go model. Not only that they are willing to pay more for the certainty of those future bills.
The issue you are thinking of is that the termination rates in some rural areas are very high in order to subsidise providing the service there. Consequently various "free" conference calls and similar services are sourced out of those areas. The rural telco then shares the revenue. The caller's telco ends up paying for the increased rates - it isn't visible to the caller. This is why there is some weasel language in various phone contracts saying they won't connect you to those numbers/services.
Call forwarding isn't a perfect solution. It still requires the cooperation of two companies - the one with the number, and the one where the number is forwarded to.
The argument isn't defeated as such - rather the US had no option than to go the way it did. Call prices are very cheap when adding together what the caller and recipient pay, compared to the rest of the world where some of it is hidden and regulators have stepped in setting rates rather than there being meaningful competition.
Telemarketers aren't allowed to call cell phones. Obviously that won't just stop them, but since they are actually trying to sell something and they need to contact a reasonable volume of people to have success, it is a lot easier for them to be detected and blocked by the carriers. I get about one telemarketer call a year. I could also contact my carrier and they would remove charges for telemarketing calls.
The majority of cellular and landline plans now are unlimited voice calls in any direction, so most of the earlier issues aren't present any more.
How does that work from the caller's point of view in caller-pays systems? Does the caller pay the landline rate (because he called a landline), and then the owner of the landline pays the cellphone rate for the forwarding from the landline to the cellphone?
It all comes down to the system you're used to. I'm used to the US system so it seems "odd" that I pay to make a call in Europe. Then again, with a mobile phone in the States that doesn't have unlimited SMS or voice, I pay to originate the voice or text contact all the same, _and_ the recipient pays, too. Know what numbers plumbers advertise on the side of their vans in Ireland? Mobile numbers, readily identified when starting with 083-089.
Number portability is, simply, what it is. Initially, number portability in the States was only allowed between wireless numbers until years later when WLNP was allowed. Even then, you could only port numbers between carriers with facilities in the same area/local code. It's only been in the past six years or so that nationwide, wireless number porting has been a reliable thing and only really because cellular systems in the States have grown so large with so many regional ratecenter connections. Landline number porting still takes almost two weeks with some carriers, if it even works.