[evgen]

This is just flat-out wrong. I am sitting here in the UK and I get occasional calls from my bank, from businesses, and even from what appear to be random numbers (e.g. when my Ocado driver is running late/early and wants to update me about delivery using his own phone.) Because I do not get bullshit robocalls [0] I actually answer the phone. Yes, a lot of people have limited minutes of phone time, but since most "calls" are over IP-based comm channels I know of few people who hit the limit; it is effectively unlimited minutes here too.

Want to know the number I do not answer? My US VOIP number that I keep for business purposes. It all goes straight to voicemail and I wait for the transcription to tell me if it is another extended warrantee offer, someone wanting to tell me my computer is infected with herpes/ebola, a fake tax issue from a state I have never lived in, or if it is in the 1% of calls to that number I actually want to receive. US mobile customers have had unlimited calls for more than a decade, but I did not get a noticeable level of spam calls ten years ago.

It is not about the number of minutes available, it is simply a matter that Europeans care about the problem and prevent it from happening while US carriers do not care and their customers did not care enough to create sufficient political pressure.

[0] there actually has been a rise in one type of scam robocall over the past couple of years: the "we have been notified that you were recently in a car accident" calls are a once a month or so annoyance.

[bluGill]

If i understand you right, by IP based you mean you are switching from a system where anyone can call anyone on any system to one where both parties have to be on the same ecosystem (proprietary app). That is not a win for communication.