Consumer Blog

Before you people get ideas, let me introduce myself. I am IVR developer myself. Caller Tune/Hello tunes, called CRBT technically, is nothing but IVR (Interactive voice response) system. Sadly, I am also one of those CRBT developers and I know CRBT is major revenue spinner for telecom companies as well as value added service providers like us, but I thank God that, Telecom companies have not removed plain old ring back tone.

But, I hate using CRBT and hate it when I do not get to hear plain old RBT (Ring back tone, for those uninitiated) but some song from some movies or album. I hate CRBT for three specific reasons and I thought I might share with you. Here they go :-

1. The song you like, I hate them

Imaging the situation, one guy calls up from hospital to inform his relative that his father just expired. As soon as he dials the mobile number of his relative, he gets to hear ‘Piya tu ab tu aajaa….”.

Fe days back, I called up a number of South Korea and it played some Korean! My bad! Few days back, I called my friend Rahul in Banglaore, he played the a song in Kannada! I told, Rahul, I do not understand Kannada, thank you, your melody is my noise.

With CRBT, you can not make out how many rings have passed and when it is time to disconnect as called party may be in a meeting! It is good manner to disconnect after say 4 rings! But how am I supposed to know 3 stanzas of the song make equivalent of 4 rings, and t is my time to disconnect ?

Finally, I like old Hindi songs, and Beatles! Most probably you hate them. Then again, lemme tell you, I hate your Shahrukh Khan numbers.

2. My God! I am paying for making my callers listen two lines of song!

How much should listening to a one song of 5 minutes duration cost ? Rs. 10, ok I agreed to pay that amount to download song from VAS short code to my mobile which I can listen again and again forever as long as I want! Have you ever thought about CRBT ? Here are few facts:-
a. You pay rental of Rs. 30 per month for making your caller listen to 1 line of song which they hate and you stop as soon as you pick up the call.
b. If you want to change the song, you pay Rs. 15!
c. You change by either calling to IVR which charges you Rs. 6 or Rs. 7 per minute as long as you are connected to the IVR.
d. If you send SMS to change it, you pay Rs. 3 for one SMS.

So, finally what you get ? Your caller gets to listen 2 lines of the song, and a unhappy caller whom you made listen to some music he hates!

Make CRBT free and see, if I use it!

3. You can no longer use speaker while phone you dial is ringing

Thanks to Caller tune or Hello tune, you can no longer switch on your speaker on the mobile of telephone instrument! You just are not sure what caller tune you may hear as soon as your called number starts ringing.. errr, playing.

Imagine your friend setting up some funny ( really, really funny) caller tune for you ( yes it is possible to configure different caller tune as per caller ID) and you happen to call him from a meeting and your boss asks you to switch on the speaker so that everybody can listen!

Here are my three reasons why I hate Caller tune, hello tune, CRBT what ever they call! Finally, I hate more when they activate it without my request and the song being a Bhajan! Well it happened with me once!

So how about you ? Do you have any interesting incidence thanks to Caller tune ?