When people use their cell phones for making calls, there is inherently a significant amount of idle time during the calls that is wasted and nevertheless incurs expense or uses up a subscriber's free minutes. Idle time occurs while a caller is waiting for a person to answer, or while a caller is put on hold or on call waiting.
Specifically, after the caller has placed a call to a person, referred to herein as a “callee”, idle time occurs while the caller is waiting for the callee or the callee's answering machine to answer. During such time the caller typically listens to ringing tones. In some instances the callee may, for a fee, engage a system that plays to the caller a soundtrack pre-designated by the callee, instead of ringing tones, while the caller is waiting for the callee or the callee's answering machine to answer. Such systems are referred to as “ringback tones” systems. A new company, Jajah Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., offers a service whereby ringing tones are replaced by recorded advertisements.
After a call is in progress, idle time occurs when the caller is put on hold. For example, the caller may be transferred to another person. Such call holding is typical when a caller calls a customer service representative and an automatic answering service transfers the call.
Idle time also occurs when a second caller calls the callee, and the callee puts the first caller on call waiting while the callee speaks with the second caller.
During such call waiting/call hold idle time, the caller is required to stay tuned to the call, in order to be available for the conversation when it resumes. In some instances the caller listens to ring tones, background sounds, background music, or background radio, initiated by the callee's calling system during call waiting/call hold.
Idle time also occurs during passive silent moments, when the callee leaves the call and has the caller wait for the callee, without putting the caller on hold.
In all of these circumstances the caller's time is wasted. The caller either waits idly for the callee, or receives content of little or no use to him.
It would thus be desirable to be able to leverage caller idle time to the caller's benefit.