Re:Don't Pick Up: Missed calls in India
by pashky on Thursday April 15, 2021 @08:55AM
(#26819860)
Eastern Europe already checked in, but I thought I'd add yet another anecdote.
In St Petersburg, Russia the only GSM provider had luxurious free 10 seconds, and $0.40/minute after that. Plus fixed monthly fee, of course. $0.40 was very expensive by Russia late 90s standards and at that time mobile phones were used by three (or really just two) distincitve groups: gangsters, emerging business people, and... dudes in IT.
Criminals didn't care about money, but IT crowd was crafty and resourceful.
Some phones allowed to configure a beep after 9 seconds prompting you to hang up and redial. Those were valued, but it didn't stop at that - there was even a cottage industry of firmware and hardware hacks for certain models to drop the call and redial automatically.
...and then providers switched to only 5 and then 3 seconds, and $0.10/min, yet for a few more years there were still annoying die-hards who kept their modded phones and old contracts with free 10 seconds and ridiculous price, which were no longer available for new clients.
In St Petersburg, Russia the only GSM provider had luxurious free 10 seconds, and $0.40/minute after that. Plus fixed monthly fee, of course. $0.40 was very expensive by Russia late 90s standards and at that time mobile phones were used by three (or really just two) distincitve groups: gangsters, emerging business people, and... dudes in IT.
Criminals didn't care about money, but IT crowd was crafty and resourceful. Some phones allowed to configure a beep after 9 seconds prompting you to hang up and redial. Those were valued, but it didn't stop at that - there was even a cottage industry of firmware and hardware hacks for certain models to drop the call and redial automatically.
...and then providers switched to only 5 and then 3 seconds, and $0.10/min, yet for a few more years there were still annoying die-hards who kept their modded phones and old contracts with free 10 seconds and ridiculous price, which were no longer available for new clients.