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Comment by samvher | Hacker News Reader

I work on a system like this. We provide agricultural advice to farmers (mainly in India and Kenya but also in some other countries). They can leave a missed call on our system, and will receive a call back where they can navigate a menu with information on a variety of topics, or they can record a question which will then be answered by an agronomist (the answer will be pushed to them as a separate call, once it's researched and recorded).

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What is the reason for this? Are incoming calls sheaper than outgoing calls?

It depends a little bit on the contract with the provider, but the idea is that we are an NGO/charity and we don't want the farmers to have to incur costs for this. If we answer the phone they pay, if we hang up and call back we pay. In some cases we are able to set up toll-free numbers and then we can just answer.

Are there places where you pay for incoming calls?

I'm in Canada and all of the services I have looked at bill you once you pick up the call. If you are in your local area (for mobile) it is always a local call but you are still charged for the minutes.

You mean the receiver is billed? I've lived in many countries (but never in North America) and never encountered that. Bizarre.

It doesn't seem that weird to me. The line is active so you pay. If you don't want to pay don't pick up the phone.

You often don't know who is calling you until you pick up the phone, so you can't make a judgement about whether it's worth paying for the call until you've already started paying.

That, combined with the fact that it appears to be unique to just the US & Canada (maybe NANP in general), makes it bizarre to me.

So both the caller and receiver are billed?

I guess only the caller has to pay, it's always been like that in my country.

Incoming calls are often free (unless you are in "roaming" mode, i.e. outside your city).

Yes, In India incoming calls are free (been like that for a very long time).

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