Okay, time for a small rant about telecommunications.

In the early days of Call Waiting, when you called another party who is already on the phone, you’d get a different ringing tone to indicate that the other party was already on a call.

You then had a choice to hang up, and try again a bit later, to catch the other party when they’re off the phone. Or, you could be persistent in the hope the other party realised your call was urgent, and utilised call waiting and interrupt their earlier call.

The system sounded fair enough to me. “Hey, they’re on the phone, I’ll hang up and call them again shortly.”

But, no, that system was changed. Apparently, having the incoming caller know you’re already on a call is a privacy issue in some way. If there’s no difference in the ringing tone, you can’t tell whether they’re on the phone or not.

Therein lies the problem, especially in a business sense.

Nowadays, when you call a number, it can ring and ring and ring — and you wonder why the phone isn’t being answered. Finally, after what appears to be “ages” of time, you get a brief announcement letting you know the other party is already on another call.

That’s of course if you wait that long to hear the message.

In the meantime, the other party has the annoying call waiting background “pips” that don’t seem to stop. You’re interrupting their call and you don’t even know it!

And, if you’re a business, it might sound like you’re either too busy to answer the phone, or that you are ignoring it.

(Not that it’s a bad thing to NOT be a slave to your phone or incoming callers — but that’s for a different post).

So what can you do? Well, there’s only really control of this at the RECEIVING end of calls — if you’re the party being called.

1. You can turn off call waiting. When you’re on the phone, incoming calls get an engaged signal. This isn’t a bad option… but is still not as good as how Call Waiting used to operate.
2. You can take the incoming call and switch between callers. I don’t like this option — devalues what you think of the original caller, especially in a business environment. Why interrupt/shut-off a caller to answer a call (and not even knowing who is calling you!)?
3. You can just ignore the call waiting “pips” — although this can still add a little time urgency/annoyance to your original conversation

So why can’t WE decide whether we want the original Call Waiting approach or the new approach? Surely it’s just a setting that can be controlled from the user’s handset, just like call waiting, three-way conferencing etc.

Why should we be told what’s best for us? Give me back my choice please!