[Iron Munro]

When you call someone you don’t hear their telephone ring, you hear a ringback tone supplied by the telephone network.

That just tells you that the network is sending out a signal to ring the other telephone.

[GreenHornet]

When you call someone you don’t hear their telephone ring, you hear a ringback tone supplied by the telephone network. That just tells you that the network is sending out a signal to ring the other telephone.

That makes sense. However, the families of those who were on board the plane are in a highly emotional state, desperate for any small ray of hope that they can cling to. Hearing the phone ring provides them with that faint glimmer of hope, even if it is totally unrealistic. We need to cut those families some slack on this.

[Wuli]

“When you call someone you don’t hear their telephone ring, you hear a ringback tone supplied by the telephone network.”

I had forgotten that.

However, they should change their systems. Their systems KNOW if they actually reach a called cell-phone unit or not. It might be busy, or simply no one snswers, or someone answers - but all three states are known, as well as the state that the network cannot locate the unit (it’s off, or “dead”).

The caller should get back from the network, a tone, or a series of tones that distinguishes the state of the connection as the network knows it to be - “calling a unit it has located”, connected, busy, no answer, or unit not located.