

'Phantom call' theory dismissed by experts - galapago
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/12/world/asia/mh370-phone-theory-debunked/

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twoodfin
We needed experts to tell us this?

I guess it's a good example of how folk knowledge about technology is often
wrong, and how UI transplanted from an old system to a new system can lead
users to make invalid assumptions.

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ape4
Maybe its time to upgrade the ringing sound. There could be a different sound
for each stage of getting the call thru. Until traditional ringing when the
phone is actually ringing.

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mrfusion
As a counterpoint, when I call a US phone that is shut off, the call seems to
go straight to voicemail.

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csbrooks
Yeah, why is that? I guess when you shut the phone off the right way, it signs
off the network or something?

But what if you just pop the battery out with no warning?

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josh2600
The call will go straight to voicemail if the last registered network was your
home network. It doesn't go straight to voicemail if the last registered
network is an international roaming partner.

Source: I'm a huge telco nerd working at 2600hz.com.

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mikeash
This whole cell phone discussion is by far the most idiotic thing I've seen
relating to MH370. I can't believe I've seen so many articles attempting to
present "both sides" of it.

Newsflash: if you dial a cell phone number, the network has to search for the
phone. If that phone is, say, at the bottom of the ocean, the network can
spend a while searching before it gives up. In that time, the caller will
often still hear a "ringing" tone.

I can understand why people might not know this and think that it somehow
means something. I cannot understand why any so-called "journalist" or "news
organization" would ever take the idea seriously for even a minute, let alone
run a story about it.

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stinos
_In that time, the caller will often still hear a "ringing" tone._

actually this was surprising (and news) to me: I'm in Belgium, and I don't
think this ever occurred to me. If the phone is not found (as in, truned off),
you don't get any ringing. Just some silence followed by either voicemail or
some message saying the correspondent is unreachable and then voicemail.

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josh2600
This is true for calls inside your home network. When you place a call to an
on-net device, the network knows almost instantaneously if you're available or
not.

Let's say you're roaming: how does your home network know how to reach you?
Without going into a lot of detail, that information has to be relayed from
your roaming carrier to your core carrier.

Most likely, the ringing you hear is the border of the home network waiting
for a response from the last registered roaming partner network. As in all
cases, every tone you hear on the network these days is just an arbitrary
audio file and has nothing to do with network operation today. Phones ringing,
busy tones, etc. are all relics held over from the old days to make people
feel better and more comfortable.

