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>But the critical part of all this is hanging up within 6 seconds. This is the one thing that hurts the telco knowingly supporting this

You should explain why that number is critical, what happens before, what happens after.

It is caused by the 6 second billing.

If call is cell to cell and no direct access or egress to landline does the 6 second still apply?

All kinds or rules here https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0198-telemarketing-sal...

Could you elaborate?

It's not clear why the phone company with lots of 5-second-billed-as-6-second calls will suffer while the one with lots of 7-second-billed-as-12 will prosper?

Telcos judge your traffic quality by several metrics including short call percentage, usually cut off at 6 seconds. Too many calls being shorter than this, and they'll add big surcharges.

The robodialers are so stupid, though. They don't want to pay for the second 6 seconds, and will hang up quickly. So intermediary companies keep the calls open to keep their stats good, then charge the dialer guys more.

Telecom is filled with actors that can't handle basic algebra.

Source: I've run billions of calls as a VoIP network and consulted for folks doing dialer.

How can robocaller keep the call running if party on another end ended the call?

That was my question! The issue is that the robocaller is hanging up early, because they get billed on 6 second intervals. But they pay so much more for their bad traffic that it's profitable to absorb a 6 second interval on the intermediaries end, just to avoid the short-call penalties. Yes, if they'd hold the call open themselves, instead of the middle-man, they'd get lower prices overall.

I see things like this in telecom too much. Where people are mathematically going to lose, guaranteed, but prefer a certain billing because it's easier to understand, or looks cheaper. While this is understandable for an SMB that isn't in the telecom business, I've seen big names take these same deals. And I've seen the other end: they 100% are losing a few % in doing so.

The whole point of blocking calls from unknown numbers is that your phone doesn't ring or distract you. Picking it up is obviously not a solution.

I believe that cletus's suggestion is that the short-term inconvenience of picking up on a few such calls will yield the long-term reward of reduced or eliminated robocalls.

Without any more details as to why or how this will make a difference, I think imma just keep blocking the cams.

I think it's incorrect. If you pick up a robocall, you get flagged as a legit number. They'll call you more, not less.

> say nothing and hang up after 3 seconds.

The "say nothing" is the important part here I think. Most robocall systems would wait for some kind of voice before starting their spam and that's the point where they probably mark the number as 'legit', not as soon as you pick up as they don't know if it's an actual person that picked up.

It just seems unlikely. I suppose it's not impossible, but in my experience robocalls start immediately. And maybe it would work if you pressed "mute", but without that, you'd leak environmental noises into the call. (People talking around you, cara going by on the street...)

It might just be a trick that people pass along regardless of effectiveness.

you might be able to let the answering machine pick it up on the first ring?

I pick up the calls because I hate having to clear the "missed call" notification. If they leave a voice mail, my entire day is filled with fury. If it's a human and I'm not doing anything important, I usually say something stupid or make gross/odd background noises for fun. I'm not sure if what you saying about the 3 to 6 second stuff is a real thing or if it would make a difference in the grand scheme of things but if so, it would be nice to have a "Punish Them" button on my incoming call screen that does all of this for me.

The correct solution is to answer the call, say nothing and hang up after 3 seconds

Actually I like the idea of fining people into bankruptcy so I don't have to deal with their nonsense. This is literally the basis for paying taxes. If I have to do my own guerilla defense against robocalls it's literally a waste of my time, so I typically let calls go to voicemail instead.

> The correct solution is to answer the call, say nothing and hang up after 3 seconds.

Fwiw this hasn't worked with the calls that I get (landline) which start out with what sounds like a fax tone at the start (but is definitely not a fax machine).