Phone credit low? Africans go for "beeping"

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - If you are in Sudan it is a 'missed call'. In Ethiopia it is a 'miskin' or a 'pitiful' call. In other parts of Africa it is a case of 'flashing', 'beeping' or in French-speaking areas 'bipage'.

Wherever you are, it is one of the fastest-growing phenomena in the continent's booming mobile telephone markets -- and it's a headache for mobile operators who are trying to figure out how to make some money out of it.
You beep someone when you call them up on their mobile phone -- setting its display screen briefly flashing -- then hang up half a second later, before they have had a chance to answer. Your friend -- you hope -- sees your name and number on their list of 'Missed Calls' and calls you back at his or her expense.
It is a tactic born out of ingenuity and necessity, say analysts who have tracked an explosion in miskin calls by cash-strapped cellphone users from Cape Town to Cairo.
"Its roots are as a strategy to save money," said Jonathan Donner, an India-based researcher for Microsoft who is due to publish a paper on "The Rules of Beeping" in the high-brow online Journal of Computer Mediated Communication in October.
Donner first came across beeping in Rwanda, then tracked it across the continent and beyond, to south and southeast Asia. Studies quoted in his paper estimate between 20 to more than 30 percent of the calls made in Africa are just split-second flashes -- empty appeals across the cellular network.
The beeping boom is being driven by a sharp rise in mobile phone use across the continent.
Africa had an estimated 192.5 million mobile phone users in 2006, up from just 25.3 million in 2001, according to figures from the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union. Customers may have enough money for the one-off purchase of a handset, but very little ready cash to spend on phone cards for the prepaid accounts that dominate the market.
Africa's mobile phone companies say the practice has become so widespread they have had to step in to prevent their circuits being swamped by second-long calls.
"We have about 355 million calls across the whole network every day," said Faisal Ijaz Khan, chief marketing officer for the Sudanese arm of Kuwaiti mobile phone operator Zain (formerly MTC). "And then there are another 130 million missed calls every day. There are a lot of missed calls in Africa."
'CALL ME BACK'
Zain is responding to the demand by drawing up plans for a "Call-me-back" service in Sudan, letting customers send open requests in the form of a very basic signal to friends for a phone call.
The main advantage for the company is that the requests will be diverted from the main network and pushed through using a much cheaper technology (USSD or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data).
A handful of similar schemes are springing up across Africa, says Informa principal analyst Devine Kofiloto. "It is widespread. It is a concern for operators in African countries, whose networks become congested depending on the time of day with calls they cannot bill for.
"They try to discourage the practice by introducing services where customers can send a limited number of 'call-back' request either free of charge or for a minimum fee."
There are plenty of other reasons why mobile operators are keen to cut down on the practice. One is it annoys customers, pestered by repeated missed calls.
A second is that 'flashes' eat into one of mobile phone companies' favorite performance indicators -- ARPU or average revenue per user. Miscalls earn very little in themselves - and don't always persuade the target to ring back.
Orange Senegal, Kofiloto said, lets customers send a 'Rappelle moi' ('Call me back') when their phone credit drops below $0.10. With Safaricom Kenya, it is a "Flashback 130" (limited to five a day -- and with the admonishment 'Stop Flashing! Ask Nicely'). Vodacom DR Congo's 'Rappelez moi SVP' service costs $0.01 a message.
MORE THAN MONEY
But beeping is not only about money. Donner's 'Rules of Beeping' suggests a social protocol for the practice.
"The richer guy pays," he writes. It is acceptable to beep someone if you are short of cash and they are flush with credit. Never beep someone poorer than you.
Never beep someone you are tapping for a favor. You don't want to risk annoying the person you are trying to win over. Never flash your girlfriend, unless you want to look cheap.
"Most beeps are requests to the mobile owner to call back immediately, but can also send a pre-negotiated instrumental message such as pick me up now,' or send a relational sign, such as I'm thinking of you,'" the paper says.
It can go even further than that.
Cameroonian researchers Victor W.A. Mbarika and Irene Mbarika identified a different kind of beeping-powered relational call in a study for the technology association the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
"Lovers often communicate with text messages or beeping'," said the study. "One party dials another's number and then hangs up. One ring could mean, I am here,' two rings, Call me now.'"
And the name they gave this new entry in the beeping lexicon? Borrowing a street slang term for an appeal for sex, they christened it "the booty call."

Routine self breast exams no longer recommended

The Canadian Cancer Society announced Wednesday it is no longer recommending routine breast self-examinations as a way to detect cancer.
While women are encouraged to be aware of abnormalities, regular scheduled self-exams give women a false sense of security and increase stress and unnecessary treatment, the Society says.

Heather Logan, director of Cancer Control Policy and Information for the Canadian Cancer Society told CTV.ca that organized screening with mammography and clinical breast examinations done by a doctor are recommended instead of monthly self exams.
"There is no evidence that doing a rigorous, systematic BSE will lower breast cancer death rates. The general transition is toward general breast health awareness where you are aware of normal breast tissue, the feel and look, and you can detect changes and report them to your doctor," Logan said on Wednesday.

Logan said a number of women feel guilty and anxious about not performing BSE in an accurate manner. Often times, women who do find a benign lump or a "false positive" often have to go through extensive diagnostic testing that can result in harmful side effects.
"You can get an infection at the site of a biopsy. You can also get disfigurement at the skin at the site of a biopsy, as well as, the anxiety of waiting for a final diagnosis whether it's cancer or not," Logan said on Wednesday.

The Canadian Cancer Society recommends:

---Women between the ages of 50 to 69 have a mammogram every two years.
---Women between the ages of 40 to 49 should discuss the risks of developing breast cancer with their physician along with the risks and benefits of mammography.

---Women over the age of 40 should be screened every two years by a physician.
---Women 70 or older should consult their doctor about screening programs.
For years, women were encouraged to perform regular BSE at the same time each month with many cancer survivors crediting BSE as an empowering life-saving tool.

A 2002 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute stated self-exams increased the rate of unnecessary benign breast biopsies, adding to health care costs.
The study, which ran for almost 11 years, determined there was no difference in breast cancer mortality rates between the BSE and the control groups. There was also little evidence that women in the BSE group were able to detect cancer earlier.
Breast cancer death rates among women have fallen by 25 per cent since 1986 and more women are living longer after a diagnosis of breast cancer.
Current evidence shows that organized screening with mammography and clinical breast examination --the most reliable methods of finding breast cancer -- have contributed to the declining death rates.
According to the CCS, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in women.
An estimated 22,300 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in Canada in 2007 with approximately 5,300 of those women dying from the disease.

Anger over NY 'immigration game'

A Republican student group in New York has sparked claims of racism by organising a game called "Find the Illegal Immigrant".
Students will act as immigration officers in Thursday's game and try to find a student in a crowd designated with a badge as the illegal immigrant.
The game has sparked protests from other students with hundreds planning to demonstrate against it.
The New York University College Republican club denied it was racist.
It says the game is intended to raise awareness on immigration issues in the United States.
The winner of the game will take home a gift certificate.
Picketing
The game is scheduled for New York's Washington Square Park.
College Republican campaign chairman David Laska told the New York Daily News: "Is it politically correct? No. But is it racist? Absolutely not.
"You have to do something like this to get people's attention."
College Republican President Sarah Chambers added: "Just because we don't want illegal immigrants being able to completely disregard the laws of our country doesn't make us racist."
The Daily News said up to 600 students were expected to protest.
One message on the website where details of the game were given read: "Let's not be lazy; instead, let's be just as organised as they are and bring out as many protesters as possible. Bring banners, voice boxes, picket signs."
Illegal immigration has remained a key issue at all levels of society.

Lawsuit Seeks To Stop NY Immigration Raids

NEW YORK -- Immigration authorities violated Hispanic families’ civil rights by raiding their homes without court warrants, sometimes bursting in before dawn to look for people who didn’t live there, a federal lawsuit claims.
The suit was filed Thursday in a federal court in Manhattan on behalf of 15 people—including seven U.S. citizens—who say their suburban homes were raided earlier this year.
Arguing that the raids violate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, the suit seeks unspecified damages and a halt on the home raids until Immigration and Customs Enforcement develops legal guidelines for them

ICE spokesman Mark Thorn said he had not seen the legal filing, but the agency does not comment on ongoing lawsuits.
According to the lawsuit, a program dubbed Operation Return to Sender dispatched armed federal agents to homes in search of illegal immigrants thought to have lingered after being ordered to leave the country. But the people sought often weren’t there and couldn’t “reasonably” have been expected to be, according to the legal complaint.
In one case, authorities raided a home in East Hampton, on eastern Long Island, around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 20 in search of a man who had moved out in 2003, according to the lawsuit. The family still living there were U.S. citizens, except for a child who is a legal resident awaiting naturalization.
“Because the immigrant communities are afraid to publicly challenge these home raids, they’ve been getting away with it,” said Foster Maer, an attorney with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The advocacy group and a private law firm, LeBouef, Lamb, Greene & McRae, brought the suit. The plaintiffs live on Long Island and in Westchester County.