Todd Allcock <elecconnec@anoospaml.com> wrote:
>
> "Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns9B58DFBF021E5noonehomecom@74.209.131.13...
>
>> Every second on every channel ANY sellphone isn't being billed for airtime
>> or money is tracked and recorded and bureaucrats at the companies are
>> worrying over "REVENUE COLLECTIONS" for every microsecond.
>
> Mobile operators in emerging nations (what we used to refer to as "the third
> world" in less politically correct times) do worry about such things since
> their customer base tries to work around them. In low-income areas like
> Africa with "caller pays" systems, people using prepaid "flash" each other-
> call and hang up immediately to avoid being charged for calls, and hope to
> get the other person to call them back (on their dime) when they see the
> missed call in their phone's log.
>
> http://www.vodafone.com/flash/receiv...xcenter02.html
>
When I lived in Brazil this was about the most f*cking annoying
thing ever. They don't collect for approxmiately the first 3-5 seconds
of the call and if you disconnect before then it's not charged. This is
nice in that it eliminates the bullshit charge for hearing the first 1-2
seconds of voicemail when you weren't interested in leaving a message.
It's bad because you got the jackasses that kept calling repeatedly
in rapid succession trying to hold a conversation in 2 second blips. In
that situation I would have preferred to just pay to call them back on
my dime most of the time, but they typically were speed dialing so
quickly you couldn't manage to get a call in edgewise of they're think
you were playing the same game and hang right up after 2-3 seconds.

Also, this was the only place I had actually been were collect
calling from mobile to mobile was enabled by default, or even possible.
Basically what happens is they call, play some kooky musical tones, and
if you don't hang up in time they connect you and the call is charged to
you! First time it happened I didn't realize it until later, after
that, I had them disable this "feature" on my phone (which, they charged
me to disable!). You got some real jerks that ALWAYS tried to call
collect. To me, that's like a big disrespectful f*ck you, I want to
talk to you, but you should pay for the call. I wouldn't have minded
either if it was someone I knew well, was expecting their call, and had
let them know it was ok to do that in an emergency, but it happened all
the time.

Re: the charges for hearing a split second of voicemail
introduction then hanging up. For the most part, voicemail is a big
money grub from the carriers. I think many people would prefer to send
a text message if they can't reach the person at that moment. With
voicemail, the person calling is charged for the time, then they collect
money from the receiver when they have to retrieve it later as well.
The first 1-5 seconds of a call diverted to voicemail should not be
chargeable at all IMHO, nor should the time spent listening to annyoing
shit like that "on hold music while we try to connect you", that's just
another money grub from the carriers, charging the subscriber to enable
a service which in turn makes people pay for bogus airtime without
actually connecting the call to the intended party. This "music on
hold" crap should not signal the call as "connected" but rather as "in
progress" still, just as you aren't charged to listen to call intercept
messages on a disconnected number.