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Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

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Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#61

Post by furyg3 »

aembleton wrote: post #51

When I was a teenager in the 90s in the UK, if I wanted my parents to collect me from somewhere then I could let them know by calling the operator from a payphone and asking for a reverse charge to my parents landline. Calls to the operator were free but reverse charged calls cost a lot to those who accepted them. When asked for my name I would usually use my first name and use my last name as the place to pick me up…

This trick was so well known that a famous ad was made about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JxhTnWrKYs

Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#63

Post by eru »

kwent wrote: post #54
numlock86 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to do something similar not too long ago. Different application really, but I wanted to do something on the other end depending on how often it rang. Sadly I discovered that apparently in all-digital "modern" phone networks (SIP, VoIP etc.) the ringing tone you hear as a caller is simply ingested by your network operator and the tone you hear as the one getting called is basically just some audio file that pl…

This is also true with silences. When we switched from analogue phone calls to digital phone calls in the 90's, SIP began to ingest white noise during silences due to discomfort perceived by the users thinking they got hung up or the network has been disconnected.

It's even worse on Zoom.

A simple experiment: let your counter party put a metronome next to their microphone, and enjoy the time distortion.

Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#64

Post by eru »

karimmaassen wrote: post #53
aembleton wrote: post #51

When I was a teenager in the 90s in the UK, if I wanted my parents to collect me from somewhere then I could let them know by calling the operator from a payphone and asking for a reverse charge to my parents landline. Calls to the operator were free but reverse charged calls cost a lot to those who accepted them. When asked for my name I would usually use my first name and use my last name as the place to pick me up…

"John Starbucks at Mainstreet"

Need to use German names. That's what the `von' is for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von

Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#65

Post by [deleted] »

kwent wrote: post #54
numlock86 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to do something similar not too long ago. Different application really, but I wanted to do something on the other end depending on how often it rang. Sadly I discovered that apparently in all-digital "modern" phone networks (SIP, VoIP etc.) the ringing tone you hear as a caller is simply ingested by your network operator and the tone you hear as the one getting called is basically just some audio file that pl…

This is also true with silences. When we switched from analogue phone calls to digital phone calls in the 90's, SIP began to ingest white noise during silences due to discomfort perceived by the users thinking they got hung up or the network has been disconnected.

[deleted]

Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#66

Post by HenryBemis »

eru wrote: post #63
kwent wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also true with silences. When we switched from analogue phone calls to digital phone calls in the 90's, SIP began to ingest white noise during silences due to discomfort perceived by the users thinking they got hung up or the network has been disconnected.

It's even worse on Zoom. A simple experiment: let your counter party put a metronome next to their microphone, and enjoy the time distortion.

It is more fun in Skype calls. There is a 'gap' then you get a 10second audio clip 'played to you' in 5 seconds :)

Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#67

Post by lxgr »

numlock86 wrote: post #42
kstenerud wrote: post #33

I wrote a "ring knocking" tool back in my college days so that I could connect to my Linux box at home from the labs at school since I was on dial-up. I'd go to the payphone, put in a quarter, call my line and let it ring the requisite number of times, hang up, get my quarter back, then go to the lab and check my school email account. The ringconnectd daemon would detect the rings, wait a few seconds, connect to my I…

I tried to do something similar not too long ago. Different application really, but I wanted to do something on the other end depending on how often it rang. Sadly I discovered that apparently in all-digital "modern" phone networks (SIP, VoIP etc.) the ringing tone you hear as a caller is simply ingested by your network operator and the tone you hear as the one getting called is basically just some audio file that pl…

> the ringing tone you hear as a caller is simply ingested by your network operator

In my experience this depends on the network in question: SIP supports "early media" and I've seen it in action a few times. You can tell by the fact that phone UIs usually don't count connection time in that state, yet you can hear a prerecorded announcement, music mixed with the dialing tone etc.

I remember some creative uses of this as well: If you controlled the signalling stack, it was possible to keep a connection open in this state indefinitely without either end getting charged.

Here's a relevant RFC: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3960

Re: Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India

#70

Post by Otek »

In Poland in mid 90's we had operator that had first 5 seconds of a call completely charge-free. So communication looked hilarious. Person who called, tried to yell as much as one could in 2-3 seconds, because after that charge-free seconds, you had to pay for the whole minute instantly.
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