5 ms·

True, but presumably your carrier is still paying for the call. If the transaction were reversed, then the robocaller or their "carrier" (or whatever the equiv

by smellf 9y ago

True, but presumably your carrier is still paying for the call. If the transaction were reversed, then the robocaller or their "carrier" (or whatever the equivalent is in robocaller land) would have to pay, and the profits would crumble.

adventured 9y ago
If I'm X telecom company and I want to inject a billion roboscam phone calls into AT&T's mobile network, I'm going to pay them for that privilege. These phone calls are no longer expensive, generally speaking, which is one of the reasons it is now cost effective.
chriscappuccio 9y ago
The access tandem is where long distance calls are switched into the local phone network for a given LATA. Local phone companies and long distance providers all buy into the same access tandem in order to connect into the geographically fixed market. When calls are switched across an access tandem in the US, it's the initiator of the call that is billed per minute. The receiver at the other end of the tandem switch may pay a fee to the switch operator to receive the RECORDS of which other company initiated a call in to them. That way, they know who to go after and bill for each incoming minute! Tandem operators typically don't provide this info during the call signalling, even though they could. As you can imagine, per-minute call billing is not always settled between tandem players. They can block each other based on company ID alone, and often this requires cooperation from the tandem operator as well. Some of the per-minute rates are incredibly high. The flat-rate long distance phone providers are obscuring the fact that some areas are extremely high-cost to terminate. This system has sprung into high per-minute cost billing in high-cost areas (rural LATAs) so that people operate free dial-up (in the 90s anyways), free phone conference lines, and even "free international calls" all taking advantage of the incredibly high per-minute rate by billing the maximum rate permitted in their LATA (typically not higher than the highest per-minute tariff posted by the incumbent local monopoly). This highly regulated old-school system seems so antiquated in the face of the Internet, but it survives because the tandem is the one place where all providers can interconnect, and this turns out to be the hardest part of the puzzle to work around. In the age of the internet, we could come up with something better :)
rplst8 9y ago
This is a great point - and was the primary idea behind charging for sending email by the message to combat spam. Someone years ago proposed that if we just charged 5 cents per message sent, most people would pay less than $5 a month while spammers would have to pay millions of dollars of the course of a year, making the business unprofitable.
- dx034 9y ago
  You could probably charge 0.1c and it would still work. But maybe make companies more aware of what to send. Every Amazon order automatically causes 4 emails (ordered, dispatched, out for delivery, delivered). If fulfilled by Amazon even 5 because then the seller will ask for a review a week later.
  - artursapek 9y ago
    I don't mind this at all. Amazon's emails are hardly on the list of annoying robo-emails. They actually deliver useful information.
    - bluGill 9y ago
      Right, but amazon wouldn't send them in a world where they pay to send. Email would cost Amazon millions of dollars each year.
      - artursapek 9y ago
        Of course not, but they shouldn't. They let me modify my email preferences and choose which emails I receive. I am happy paying $20/year for email storage.
kelnos 9y ago
The caller also may have to pay, depending on their arrangement with their carrier. Having the receive pay or not pay has no bearing on that.

by smellf 9y ago

adventured 9y ago

If I'm X telecom company and I want to inject a billion roboscam phone calls into AT&T's mobile network, I'm going to pay them for that privilege. These phone calls are no longer expensive, generally speaking, which is one of the reasons it is now cost effective.

chriscappuccio 9y ago

The access tandem is where long distance calls are switched into the local phone network for a given LATA. Local phone companies and long distance providers all buy into the same access tandem in order to connect into the geographically fixed market. When calls are switched across an access tandem in the US, it's the initiator of the call that is billed per minute. The receiver at the other end of the tandem switch may pay a fee to the switch operator to receive the RECORDS of which other company initiated a call in to them. That way, they know who to go after and bill for each incoming minute! Tandem operators typically don't provide this info during the call signalling, even though they could. As you can imagine, per-minute call billing is not always settled between tandem players. They can block each other based on company ID alone, and often this requires cooperation from the tandem operator as well. Some of the per-minute rates are incredibly high. The flat-rate long distance phone providers are obscuring the fact that some areas are extremely high-cost to terminate. This system has sprung into high per-minute cost billing in high-cost areas (rural LATAs) so that people operate free dial-up (in the 90s anyways), free phone conference lines, and even "free international calls" all taking advantage of the incredibly high per-minute rate by billing the maximum rate permitted in their LATA (typically not higher than the highest per-minute tariff posted by the incumbent local monopoly). This highly regulated old-school system seems so antiquated in the face of the Internet, but it survives because the tandem is the one place where all providers can interconnect, and this turns out to be the hardest part of the puzzle to work around. In the age of the internet, we could come up with something better :)

rplst8 9y ago

This is a great point - and was the primary idea behind charging for sending email by the message to combat spam. Someone years ago proposed that if we just charged 5 cents per message sent, most people would pay less than $5 a month while spammers would have to pay millions of dollars of the course of a year, making the business unprofitable.

dx034 9y ago
You could probably charge 0.1c and it would still work. But maybe make companies more aware of what to send. Every Amazon order automatically causes 4 emails (ordered, dispatched, out for delivery, delivered). If fulfilled by Amazon even 5 because then the seller will ask for a review a week later.
- artursapek 9y ago
  I don't mind this at all. Amazon's emails are hardly on the list of annoying robo-emails. They actually deliver useful information.
  - bluGill 9y ago
    Right, but amazon wouldn't send them in a world where they pay to send. Email would cost Amazon millions of dollars each year.
    - artursapek 9y ago
      Of course not, but they shouldn't. They let me modify my email preferences and choose which emails I receive. I am happy paying $20/year for email storage.

kelnos 9y ago

The caller also may have to pay, depending on their arrangement with their carrier. Having the receive pay or not pay has no bearing on that.