Whirlpool

my daughter has a new vodaphone mobile where she can choose which music plays over the dial tone of incoming calls – when I call her from my AAPT home phone am I charged for the call from the moment voaphone starts playing music or when she answers?

My last bill I wasn't sure, it was extremely high and I seem to have been charge for a lot of 5-7 second calls so I'm doing testing this month.
An answer to this query would start world war 3 in the family :-)

sandiessg writes...

when I call her from my AAPT home phone am I charged for the call from the moment voaphone starts playing music or when she answers?

Here is the way I understand it. But if you want to know for sure asks AAPT's billing department.

When you make a call to a mobile phone, data has to be sent thouh the mobile phone network to make th phone ring. AAPT gets charge for sending data over the mobile phone network, so they pass this charge onto you. This would be shown as these very short calls you see on your invoice.

Some other phone providers own their own mobile phone networks. As they own the network, it would be silly of them to charge themself money to use their network (so they don't). Because of this when calling from a network that owns it's own mobile phone network no charge is applied. Also I believe an agreement has been made with other networks that own mobile phone networks they do not charge them this fee (as long as they return the offer).

So overall to put in simple terms, I believe AAPT charge a small fee for un-answered mobile phone calls, and Optus and Telstra may not.

Mr E writes...

So overall to put in simple terms, I believe AAPT charge a small fee for un-answered mobile phone calls, and Optus and Telstra may not.

Optus charges for these "no answer but phone rings" calls.
Found out when i did a couple of pranks and noted that it was charged the flagfall for them.

Mr Trick writes...

Optus charges for these "no answer but phone rings" calls.
Found out when i did a couple of pranks and noted that it was charged the flagfall for them.

I'm with virgin mobile and I just checked my call history and I don't seem to have any charges for "no answer" calls.

Phone companies are meant to not charge for unanswered calls, but it all depends upon what is being reported by the service. Some incorrectly configured PABX's can report the call as answered when it passes through to the extension, even though noone has actually answered the call.

My son had the same thing and I was also charged when I called him. He is with Telstra and I at that time had my home phone with AAPT. If I called him from my Telstra phone though I would not be charged.

I took it off his phone much to his disgust....I would hear the music as well as a ringing tone and it was quite crappy to hear. I dont know why anyone would want it on their phone because they dont hear the music (unless it has changed since my son had it 6 months ago) only the person calling them does.

But yes...I thought it a bit rude to charge for unanswered calls.

As crap as it may be, I think telcos are allowed to charge you for "no answer" calls.
The flagfall is basically the connection charge.
So regardless of whether the call is answered, it's still being connected.

Dodgey but then telcos are there to turn over profits and little charges like this all adds up

Mr Trick writes...

As crap as it may be, I think telcos are allowed to charge you for "no answer" calls.

Although it doesn't specifically describe not charging for unanswered calls, the following link is to the ACMA detailing occasions when people may be charged for calls which they think weren't answered. I take it from that that telcos aren't meant to charge for unanswered calls.

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_1684

Hi Sandiessg,

AAPT don't actually charge for the call until there has been a response from the network of the provider your are calling to say the call has been answered.

This is either the point where the other person answers, or where the voicemail service of the other user starts, usually about a a half of a second to a second before you hear the voicemail greeting (It's the small bit of silence before the greeting starts). Even if you hang up straight away, if this happens literaly just as or after the call has been answered then this would mean the network would recognise this as answered and therefor you would be charged.

What can help this is if your daughter does have voicemail, ask if she can extend the number of rings before her voicemail answers which means you will have a bit more room to spend trying to see if she will answer her phone before this kicks in.

If you have any further concerns, give us a call on 135005 or drop us an enquiry on aapt.com.au and one of our team will be glad to help.