Hunt for missing jet widens to distant waters

[Berlin Expat]

4. The phones are ringing

but that doesn't mean there's anyone on the other end.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/11/288998085/ringing-phones-do-not-mean-malaysian-passengers-are-ok

"When a customer calls another number," he said, "the carrier has to decide what to do next."

Basically, it starts searching for the phone that's being called.

While the phone company's doing that, it sends a ring — or two, or three, or more — to the person who initiated the call. The phone company does that, Kagan said, "so that the customer doesn't hang up" while the search for that other phone is underway.

This happens to him quite frequently, Kagan told us. "My wife will call me and say she heard it ring two or three times. But I picked it up on the first ring [that he heard]." She was hearing the "rings" that the cellphone carrier sent while it was searching for his phone.

Kagan says he understands why grieving families might get some comfort from or be confused by the "rings" they've heard. But he wishes their expectations weren't apparently raised needlessly. "I hate that they have hope" because of this bit of technology, he said.

It all depends on the carrier, apparently; sometimes if a phone is switched off, it'll automatically go to voicemail. In my particular case, with my carrier, if I switch off my phone and call it from another phone, I get a ringtone as well; it doesn't go to voicemail until after five rings.