All the telephone companies round off the first minute of your calls: whether you talk for just five seconds or forty seconds, you still pay for that full minute. According to the technical explanations given to Listin Diario reporter Jairon Severino, this happens because the technological platform that is used by the phone companies is programmed this way, and customers pay for time they do not use. Research by technicians and specialists working in the telecommunications field shows that the average cellular phone call is less than a minute long, since many people ask to be called back. In the Dominican Republic there are 2.5 million cell phones. At a rate that varies between RD$7.49 per minute to RD$10.18 per minute, this means that the first minute generates between RD$18.5 million and RD$25.5 million. In simple terms, if each cell phone is used just once a day for five seconds, the phone companies get over RD$100 million a week. One concern for the client is that only one of the phone companies warns when the automatic answering service is about to enter and the call completed. The other services just let the service answer the call and ring up those first minutes. INDOTEL, the Telecommunications Institute, accepts that the phone companies do this, admitting that they do not have the power to put a halt to the practice. According to INDOTEL head Jose Alberto Rizek, this is a common commercial practice, and is one of the things that distinguishes the different companies that offer telecommunication services. All companies must conform to Law125-04 and tell their customers exactly how their bills are calculated. Verizon, Centennial, Orange and Tricom explain their billing practices with varying detail: they all round off that first minute, supposedly for technical reasons. For calls over one minute, the companies vary. Some charge minute by minute. Others charge every six seconds, others charge by 10 or 20 second increments. Since clients have been told how they are being billed, it is up to them to make the best use of their telephone service.