Missed call

This article is about the practice of deliberately missing calls to communicate information. For missed phonecalls in general, see Telephone call. For other uses, see One Missed Call (disambiguation).

A missed call is a telephone call that is deliberately terminated by the caller before being answered by its intended recipient, in order to communicate a pre-agreed message without paying the cost of a call. For example, a group of friends may agree that two missed calls in succession means "I am running late". The practice is common in South Asia, the Philippines and Africa.

In Bangladesh, missed calls make up 70% of cellular network traffic.[1] The Cellular Operators Association of India, COAI, has instituted a study to understand the revenue implications of missed calls in India.[2] Industry estimates of loss of revenue due to this social phenomenon were between 20[3] to and 30%, in 2007.[4]

Some companies offer information services which are accessed by making a missed call to a particular number, causing an automated system to return the call and deliver a pre-recorded message.[5] The culture of the missed call has also been used by political parties like the Aam Aadmi Party as a call to action to drive membership.[6]

To "miss call", in the Philippine-adapted form miskol, was declared the Word of the Year in 2007 at a language convention held in the University of the Philippines Diliman.[7]

Equivalents in other places are to drop call in the US, to beep in Africa,[8] to prank in England and Australia.[9] and to flash in Nigeria.

Social usage

Adoption by businesses

In Bhutan, farmers know how much milk their customers want by the number of missed calls they get.[1] In India, a missed call from a shop or business means "Your order is ready".[1] In the United Kingdom, taxi drivers may use missed calls to let customers know that their taxi has arrived.

Syndicate Bank introduced Missed Call Banking Facility, which allows customers to check their balances by giving a missed call to a designated number.

In 2014, Facebook partnered with VivaConnect to launch a Missed Call Ad Unit[10] business specifically for the feature phone heavy Indian market, where a person could place a Missed Call to a number displayed on Ad and get offline content in return call.

In Pakistan, Nestle collaborated with Flashcall, a missed call service provider, to run a nationwide media campaign where they encouraged people to give the brand a missed call to receive a pre-recorded callback from singer Shehzad Roy, delivering an educational message about iron deficiency in children.

Activism

In Bangladesh, an online protest was arranged with the help of a Facebook event on 27 January 2013 demanding the mobile phone operators cut their internet price. More than 250,000 Facebook users participated by exchanging millions of missed calls.[11][12]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 jeremy (2010-11-10). "The Missed Call: The Decade's Zeitgeist?". Loosewireblog.com. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  2. ↑ "Missed call ends in missing revenue". Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  3. ↑ "Etiquettes go missing in missed calls!". Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  4. ↑ "Missed call virus bugs telecom firms!". Retrieved 2008-10-13.
  5. ↑ "Give a `missed call' to get information on city". The Hindu. Madras, India. 2006-08-09. Retrieved 2007-10-02.
  6. ↑ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-26028381
  7. ↑ Alexander, Villafania (2007-08-13). ""Miskol" is Filipino word of the year at conference". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
  8. ↑ Archived March 20, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ↑ wiktionary:prank
  10. ↑ http://mashable.com/2014/07/02/facebook-missed-call-ads-india/
  11. ↑ Gabe Wachob, USA (2013-01-25). "Bangladesh: Missed Call – A Tool For Protest? · Global Voices". Globalvoices.org. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  12. ↑ "বাংলাদেশ প্রতিদিন". Bd-pratidin.com. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
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