The article mentions average phone revenue in India, and I'm not sure if it was trying to make the link or not, but the missed call culture shouldn't affect overall Indian cell revenue rates too much since someone ends up paying for the call. Exceptions would be phoning outside the country and the receiver having different rates than the sender.
Of course it makes a difference if, say, everyone using missed calls were with the same company. Then that company would fail...
Perhaps a solution (assuming one is desired) is for businesses to offer toll free numbers such that cell phone calls to them are payed for by them?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't the case such that when you place a call and immediately hang up, no one pays for that call, although unnecessary traffic is caused for the operator? In some of these cases the receiver might call back, and then that second call is paid for. But if this is really a culture in India, then the operators lines are used a lot all the time, even though no one is paying for these one ring calls.
Yes, I do assume no-one pays for the missed call. But as you say, the receiver pays for the subsequent return call, whereas otherwise, the original sender would have paid. Either way, assuming a call happens, someone pays, so if the article is implying this costs the Indian cell industry as a whole money, I'm not sure it's really true. Sure, increased overhead on the system is an issue, plus the exceptions I noted.
Of course it makes a difference if, say, everyone using missed calls were with the same company. Then that company would fail...
Perhaps a solution (assuming one is desired) is for businesses to offer toll free numbers such that cell phone calls to them are payed for by them?