

India’s missed call culture - sytelus
http://gigaom.com/mobile/indias-missed-call-mobile-ecosystem-2/

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ghshephard
This reminds me of when I was going to college (1988-1991) and the "Collect
Call" system was becoming automated (all landlines) - with a collect call, it
would be the recipient who would pay the charges, _if they accepted_. The
automated system would give you a chance to say your name, and then it would
play a message to the recipient "You have a collect call from <Play Name that
was just recorded>. Do you accept charges?"

Of course, you could say anything as your name including, "Let's go for pizza
8:00" or "Won't be able to make study group tonight" - if you said it quickly
enough. The person at the other end would here the message, and then decline
to receive the call.

Caller ID wasn't as common - I'm presuming the missed call culture leverage
caller ID for a lot of it's signalling mechanism. (I.E. If you are a taxi, and
get a call that cuts off after 1 ring from a number, it means come pick that
person up. If you get 2 rings then it means call me back, etc...)

~~~
bryanlarsen
I know a few people who got really burned by the automated collect call
system. The phone company (Sasktel in this case) started reviewing the
recordings and charged the calls where something other than a name was used.

~~~
ghshephard
Charged who? The person being called? That would open them up to a pretty
trivial attack - call their answering machine with something other than a
name. The person calling? Usually you would do this from a pay phone (Remember
those?) - so no luck there.

In my case, it was BC Tel, and I don't ever recall anyone ever getting charged
throughout my college existence.

~~~
dmd
A trivial attack... like the one where you can send anyone at all any number
of text messages, and THEY have to pay to receive them?

(This is how text messages work in the USA.)

~~~
JonnieCache
I've always wondered about that. In the US, could I send someone I hated
$100,000 worth of text messages and plunge them into debt?

~~~
andyking
It differs between different networks, but when I send a message from my
Virgin Mobile in the US, I pay along with the recipient.

Mobile tariffs in the US, especially pay as you go, make me feel lucky to live
in Britain.

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rogerbinns
(I'm a Brit living in the US.)

There is nothing nefarious or stupid going on in the US. In most other
countries in the world there is a separate area code for mobile phones.
Calling a mobile phone area code is considerably more expensive than calling a
land line (for the caller). To get an idea of the difference lookup rates for
any international calling card. For example the first one I found charges 1c
per minute to UK landlines and 5c per minute to UK cellular. For many
countries there is a 1:10 difference in cost.

So now we have established that calls involving a cellular endpoint are more
expensive virtually everywhere. In places that have a separate area code for
cells it will be the caller paying the additional cost.

In the US (and elsewhere participating in the North American Numbering Plan)
it would be virtually impossible to allocate new area codes, so there is no
way of knowing the recipient is a cellular phone. The only practical way of
dealing with this is to make the recipient pay the extra which is exactly what
happens. But someone is always paying! And a lot of people don't mind this,
especially when mobile service was new. If you were a plumber on the go you
didn't want people to think about calling a competitor on a landline while you
had a cell because it was more expensive. Having all calls cost the same
significantly reduces friction for people who want to communicate.

Because the recipient is paying for incoming calls and that person is making
the purchase of the incoming minutes there is very strong pricing competition.
Incoming and outgoing minutes are relatively very cheap in the US. So much so
that the carriers have to nickel and dime people on everything else in order
to make up the necessary ARPU.

~~~
AmazingMe
love India!

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nazar
Several years ago in Turkmenistans first 5 seconds of the call was free. While
I was in high school, we were using that feature as a radio.: A: I am in
canteen(hang up) B: Coming(hang up) A: Bring chemistry book (hang up) B: Ok

We could talk like this whole day without paying a penny

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someperson
There is a HUGE market here for someone to create a free texting app that
encodes each character in the length of time before the call has been ended
(like morse code, but with no dots, only dashes).

The application would abstract the handshake+message delivery away and
hopefully would find ways to reliably send a character in hundred
milliseconds, instead of seconds.

If the application becomes successful, you would have live with being the one
to make carriers the world over to begin charging when a phone BEGINS ringing,
instead of a successful connection. (or remove the loophole in another way,
like charge on the 3rd attempt.)

Alternatively don't send individual characters, from a single call the user
can choose one of 5-10 default messages (preset or mutually-agreed-upon-
inadvance) like "OK" "Be there in 5 minutes" "No" etc via the length of a
single call using a mobile phone application.

You can have entire conversations via mobile for free :D

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eru
> If the application becomes successful, you would have live with being the
> one to make carriers the world over to begin charging when a phone BEGINS
> ringing, instead of a successful connection. (or remove the loophole in
> another way, like charge on the 3rd attempt.)

They could also start messing up your careful timing. Then it would be much
harder to convey information.

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ravivyas
Some Indian providers already do this.

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hkmurakami
Interesting, this "missed call" was used in Japan extensively in the early
2000's, mainly to ask friends in the middle of the night whether they were
still awake or not (kind of like the late-night instant message to a friend
who is displayed as "away").

The act was called "One-Giri" (Giri is a conjugated form of "Kiru" which means
_to cut_ or _hang up_ , in the case of a phone call)

~~~
arkitaip
But not anymore? What happened?

This missed call phenomena is fairly common in Sweden amongst children and
teens with prepaid cards/plans.

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hkmurakami
I believe that during that time, text messages were charged per character (and
hence an alternative to the "missed call" was to send a text message with one
character - or perhaps it was even zero characters). I don't think regular
data plans or messages/month plans existed back then (or at the least, were
not prevalent)

Now, data plans are the norm and many users have unlimited (non-internet) data
plans and can text message indiscriminately. Limited data plans do exist, but
because the "culture" has shifted towards proper messaging, people no longer
send empty messages or use missed calls)

(For some reference, I don't think Japan had unlimited bandwidth internet of
any kind in the late 90's, while U.S. users at least had the option of dial up
unlimited monthly internet access; Earthlink, for one. The lack of a fixed
cost cellphone message plan is thus in line with their overall
telecommunication tradition)

If there are any users who lived in Japan and is more knowledgeable about the
subject than I am, I will gladly be corrected.

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joezydeco
We were doing this 30 years ago in the US, usually when someone's flight
landed and they needed a ride.

You initiate a collect call and tell the operator a bogus name. Operator calls
home and the call is rejected. Ride is on it's way. It got a little easier in
the 80s when the system got automated and Mom would get a collect call from
"COMEPICKMEUPATUNITEDDOORSEVEN"

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seanos
A phenomenon I noticed in certain Latin American countries: there are vendors
walking around and on every street corner advertising "Minutos" who carry a
set of mobile phones on strings which they will rent to you. The main reason
is that calls between phones on the same network are much cheaper, so it
enables people to own a single phone and dodge the higher inter-network
charges when making calls.

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pmorici
Do cell phone minutes work differently in India? I was under the impression
that I pay for minutes on my phone even when receiving a call. In which case I
don't understand how hanging up after the first ring only to have someone call
me back would save anything.

~~~
masklinn
The US and Canada are the only countries I know of where you pay for spam (as
in, pay when receiving a call or a text).

There might be others, but in advanced economies (at least) the concept is
generally found ludicrous.

~~~
mark_story
Mobile pricing in Canada is entirely mental. The charges carriers charge here
is crazy compared to europe or asia. I had hoped that when we went from 3 to
6+ carriers things would improve, but they haven't. :(

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jellicle
Mobilicity has $12.50/month unlimited calling plans now... I wouldn't say
things haven't improved. If you use the upstart carriers you're paying a lot
less. What hasn't happened is that Rogers or Bell or Telus have reduced their
prices to match. Presumably they are anticipating that at some point they can
simply acquire the new carriers and fold them in, like Fido or Virgin Mobile.

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badclient
I know why missed calls work for personal use.

But the use case described just sounds like an 800 number replacement. A
better solution would be to have an 800 number than a missed call feature that
calls you back do you don't have to pay.

~~~
Maxious
Except if the cost of the 800 number incoming calls is more than the cost of
however you can minimise your outgoing calls.

There was a similar situation in Australia where long-distance phone card
providers wanted to ensure their relevancy in an age of decreased landline
connections. Mobile phone calls to 800 numbers still cost the caller money and
the reciever (which is why the telcos agreed this year to exempt counselling
hotlines).

So instead they decided to setup hotline mobile phone connections to enter
your phone card details, thus taking advantage of inside-same-network free
calling. The telcos had none of it and just charged premium rates for those
specific normal looking mobile phone numbers. I bet Indian telcos will be
looking to do the same anytime soon.

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simondlr
I always thought most mobile operators offered a "please call me" service? In
South Africa, you can send a 'message' using USSD (ie *140#<number>) to let
someone know that they should call you. You have a limit of 100 a day or
something.

Is this common in other countries as well? (Clearly not in India?)

~~~
msh
I have never heard of this in scandinavia.

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jezclaremurugan
But i guess the networks more than make up for it by having a huge margin for
sms. They shouldn't really complain.

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desushil
Network providers should think upon decreasing the cost of SMS instead of
complaining about missed calls. It would give them the opportunity to monetise
as well as free up the network to some extent.

And as for the 'missed call' culture, it's either used mostly by students or
the poor peoples (a bitter truth of most Indians), in either of the case, it
is mostly likely that none of them uses smart phones that can handle
applications as mentioned in the comments here.

~~~
DanBC
SMS expanded from "minimal messaging that utilised slack space in the system"
to "primary use of the system for many people".

There could and should be a way to get free, minimal messaging, sent as the
system has free space, working. That could be used alongside modern sms and
mms systems.

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jandy
I remember doing this as a teenager when we all started getting mobile phones
(England). At first it was just to annoy people, we'd call it "pranking",
where you'd call someone and hang-up before they answered; but later it
evolved into a "I have no credit, please call me back" signal.

The phenomenon seemed to die off pretty much exactly at the same time as when
everyone got jobs and/or money.

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fendale
When I was in the USA travelling and wanted to call someone on Skype back in
the UK, I used the ring once hang up technique to signal for them to get
logged onto Skype or text me back to say they cannot. When inthe USA on a UK
mobile, it's about $1.50 per minute to make a call, and $0.50 to send a text.
It's free to receive texts though so this hack let me communicate basically
for free.

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rayhano
In the developed world (except the US and Canada) voice calls are cheap and
inclusive. Kids in the UK have phones for £10 a month, happily funded by
parents, and they either hit a limit and have to top up or have enough
inclusive minutes.

The developing world isn't going to be so quick to hand over its hard earned
money to big corporates. The apps designed around missed calls as a
communicative action are genius: you could use it in a variety of services:
"Miss call Dominoes and we will send you your regular order within 30
minutes.... Could cause havoc too :) ( maybe need a railways return call to
double check the order, on second thoughts...)

Maybe we are missing a trick here with consumers? A missed call is faster and
more convenient than a text message... Would be a great marketing or polling
tool

~~~
4clicknet
I think that as consumers our reflex is to send a text when a missed call
might be faster/more convenient. For example, if I'm picking up a friend, I'll
text "I'm here" or "here", whereas I could simply make a missed call and my
friend sees that it's me on the display and goes outside because she's
expecting me.

Making a missed call would just not occur to me, but when I moved to Lithuania
for a few years it became a habit because that's what everyone does over there
(and in other places where there is a missed call culture and people have
several cell phones to take advantage of cheap/free calling plans within a
given carrier network). It's faster by a few seconds than sending a text or
calling the person and telling them.

Once you're in the missed call mindset, you see all kinds of situations where
you can use it, but until you get in the mindset, the reflex will be to send a
text or make a call.

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devs1010
Interesting as I don't think this would hurt the overall phone business as
someone is always paying for the return call. However, I suppose this would
tip in favor mainly of the landline companies and would be cutting profits
from cell companies.

~~~
namank
Keeps the networks super busy without paying for it.

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afterburner
The article mentions average phone revenue in India, and I'm not sure if it
was trying to make the link or not, but the missed call culture shouldn't
affect overall Indian cell revenue rates too much since _someone_ ends up
paying for the call. Exceptions would be phoning outside the country and the
receiver having different rates than the sender.

Of course it makes a difference if, say, everyone using missed calls were with
the same company. Then that company would fail...

Perhaps a solution (assuming one is desired) is for businesses to offer toll
free numbers such that cell phone calls to them are payed for by them?

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pedrolll
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the case such that when you place
a call and immediately hang up, no one pays for that call, although
unnecessary traffic is caused for the operator? In some of these cases the
receiver might call back, and then that second call is paid for. But if this
is really a culture in India, then the operators lines are used a lot all the
time, even though no one is paying for these one ring calls.

~~~
afterburner
Yes, I do assume no-one pays for the missed call. But as you say, the receiver
pays for the subsequent return call, whereas otherwise, the original sender
would have paid. Either way, assuming a call happens, someone pays, so if the
article is implying this costs the Indian cell industry as a whole money, I'm
not sure it's really true. Sure, increased overhead on the system is an issue,
plus the exceptions I noted.

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lappet
I have read similar articles a few years back. The "missed call culture" as
people put it has been there for quite sometime, since the mobile revolution
in India. However I would say one reason for this might be that voice mail is
hardly used in India - if someone's phone is unreachable or switched off -
when you try calling them, you hear a recorded message saying the other person
is unreachable - unlike in the US when a lot of times you are just redirected
to the receiver's voice mail box. I happen to be not very fond of voice mail
:(

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fpgeek
I wonder if there is (or soon will be) an Android app / dialer that lets you
"call" people with a missed call. Based on the little international number
dialer I use (substituting a cheaper dialing code for + according to your
instructions), you'd be able to support general dialing actions (e.g. dialing
a phone number recognized in an email or web page) and might even be able to
adjust the call log so you see a single outbound call, rather than a "missed
call" and its response separately. I can see that being fairly useful.

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kaerast
When leaving my grandparents' house for a long journey home, everybody was
always instructed to give three rings when they get home safely. To this day I
always let a phone ring three times before answering, partly in case it's an
"I'm OK" message and partly because waiting for somebody to answer gives the
caller time to think what they actually want to say.

My grandparents didn't have caller ID and so had no idea who was telling them
they'd got home safely, but they could guess based on timings pretty well.

~~~
gwillen
This works much less well in the days of digital call signalling. The
"ringback tone" you hear -- the ringing in your earpiece when you call someone
-- no longer corresponds in any way to the ring being generated on the other
end. Ringback can start before or after ringing, so you can't even count on
the number of seconds being the same, let alone the number of rings.

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pkuhad
I disagree with the author, I don't talk about those miser souls who think
they can save enough money by these miss calls, but if you are specially
talking about that miserable 'poor', the post is targeted for, understand now
that a proper call is more appropriate than making just a miss call. If some
of you are aware of mixed culture of urban and rural india in towns and small
cities, then it's a norm for a taxi/auto [cab] drivers to make calls for their
customers (I am not talking about professional cab companies, who provide
cellphones to their drivers). Vegetable salespersons, electricians, plumbers
.. there is a long list of these, it was an era when they were used to miss
calls, but they will rather make a call today. However my take on this post is
based on what I am observing in my surroundings, may be statistics say
something else. The other reason of making a proper call can go like this :
some telephone companies in India sell their sim 'free' and you get starting
free talk time of 30/50/100 INR, these sim are sold in wholesale(obviously
targeted for conversions ), if not free then they are there for nominal
charges. Barrier to entry for making a call is very less, it is used for free
talk time,internet(with indian speed) then some trash the sim, some of them
don't mind making a local call on tariff like 1 paisa per second . [ 1 Rupees
= 100 Paisa ]

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meow
Even now (after the long distance call cost has drastically come down), when
ever I receive a call from my parents, I instinctively cut it (making it a
missed call for them) and call them back :). In last two years increased
competition among telecom players pushed down costs so low that in a few years
missed calls may not mean much...

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piyushpr
It's a shame this doesn't mention Zipdial <http://zipdial.com>

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pagekalisedown
This is also common in Africa.

~~~
jscohn
As as well as in the Dominican Republic, from my experience.

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halayli
This behavior existed since early 90s in Lebanon.

"Necessity is the mother of invention"

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travisneotyler
Tyler Durden: I *69 you, I never pick up my phone.

Indian: I missed called you, I never call from my phone.

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calcnerd256
poke

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josephcooney
What is the average lifetime value of a customer too cheap to send a text
message?

~~~
DanBC
What is the average lifetime value of a customer too "cheap" to buy a full
bottle of shampoo? The people who want that business sell sachets of shampoo.
It's a model that works.

I guess if people are spending money sending text messages that's money that
they're not spending on my business.

