Duration of a Telephone Call

Posts: 40 · Full Forum Member Joined: Apr 24, 2004 Posts: 40

Will somebody enlighten us as to how the duration of a call is measured by the telephone companies. Today I measured a call with the watch to be of slightly less than 5 minutes duration but the log shows it to be 6 minutes. Do they charge us for an extra minute for all the calls. What Voip is the best for this?? Thanks.

Posts: 433 · Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 1:47 pm Post subject:

How long did it ring before being answered? Could be you are being counted for ring time in addition to talk time.

Posts: 40 · Full Forum Member Joined: Apr 24, 2004 Posts: 40

Both lines were mine so no error there.

Posts: 40 · Full Forum Member Joined: Apr 24, 2004 Posts: 40

Thanks. I know some of the prepaid cards round up to 3 minutes. If Vonage is doing upto next minute, it is slightly better. Best would be rounding upto seconds. You may not know but some people have to call all those far off countries where one extra minute may mean a few bucks.
For example an extra minute to Tuvalu is $3.50 and to Wallis/Fatuna Island is $1.50 and to Zanzibar is $1.10.

Posts: 43 · Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:24 am Post subject:

Rounding to the next minute is pretty standard in the telecom industry.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't until the early-to-mid-90s that people started rounding to the nearest 6 seconds and so forth. I remember LCI (before they were bought out by Qwest) touting their rounding method.

Predictably, it's spread to some cell phone carriers Orange (France Telecom's mobile service) had a big campaign last year about it: Stark black billboards displayed transcripts of humourous 3-4 line conversations where people would get a wrong number or something like that-- to emphasize that many calls are a fraction of a minute.

Not that I disagree with anyone here who's irritated.. but I didn't expect any different. After years of a love-hate relationship with AT&T phonecards (3.7 cents a minute, but they sure don't hesitate to tack on payphone surcharges-- even if your call doesn't connect), I'm used to the rounding business.

Guest

Whatever suggestions we give to Vonage they try their best to act on them. The duration of a call mattered a little more on International Calls to some expensive countries. I must say Vonage has improved a lot in the last few weeks and I can safely say it has joined the ranks of First Class Telephone company. Times are measured quite accurately to the next minute although ideal would be rounding in seconds. The quality of International Calls to Difficult countries has tremendously improved. Well done Vonage. Don't let Skype take any of your customers away (when skype ou starts working) by offering cheaper rates!! SkypeOut rates were shown on internet for a few days.