The Art Of the Beep Back - How People In Africa Save Money With Cell Phones

[jeffrey]

I found this interesting:

A few days ago a Reuters report described how Africans (and others) have devised ingenious methods to communicate with cell phones without incurring charges. This is accomplished by beeping: placing a call and allowing the screen on the receiving party's phone to flash for long enough to identify the caller. The person placing the call then quickly hangs up, hoping that the call recipient will phone back.


Rules of Beeping: Sciam Observations

[Hot dog]

I did this with my first house phone. It was an inexpensive line and I did not have to pay such a big down payment for my first phone. I could receive calls but had to pay to make out going calls so I would call family let it ring twice and then hang up and they would call me back must have been before caller id

[sweeps]

Collect call from Wehadababy Itsaboy. Do you accept the charges?

[Hot dog]

My brother actually did that to tell us about his baby girl just to be foolish

[Hanuka]

lol nice

[cptacek]

I'm doing this now! My fiance and I have Alltel cell phones, and we get 10 numbers we can call for free, with unlimited minutes. I put his home number, my home number, and my work number as 3 of those. My cell phone doesn't work sometimes at my house, so if I am home, I call him on my home number for a couple rings, and he calls back. Same if I am at work, so my employer doesn't pay for it.