Computer spam is much better. You can block the email addresses from which you get too many unwanted emails. You can select all the unwanted emails by ticking the boxes against them and delete them all at one go.

That's not the case with mobile spam. To delete one unwanted message, you have to do all this – press "Menu", navigate to "Messages", press "Messages", navigate to "Inbox", press "Inbox", open the message (which takes a moment is modern phones), press "Options", navigate to "Delete", press "Delete", the next screen will ask "Are you sure you want to delete this message?", you select "Yes" and huh… there it ends.

Now, consider a situation (my situation) in which you'd get three to four useless messages (buy this, download that ringtone, participate in this contest, download that wallpaper and similar shit) from the service provider (AirTel). When the message comes, you'd just read it once and exit the window.

But the problem arises when after some days, your message inbox will be nearing its capacity. So you'll have to delete some messages. If you delete only some messages, you'll have to keep deleting some every time a new batch of messages arrive. So, you'd prefer to delete all of them at at once. But interspersed here and there between the unwanted messages are "wanted" messages that you'd like to retain. What to do? You'll be forced to delete all those unwanted messages one by one. Considering that most mobiles (Nokia 3120) hold a maximum of 160 messages, atleast 110 to 120 of them will be unwanted (my case).

You'll be set up on an annoying project of deleting upto 20 or 30 messages going by the above procedure. There's no method of dealing with this menace other than that procedure.

But there is a procedure to deal with mobile spam of a different kind – the kind in which the service provider actually calls you (this is a far more annoying kind) and presents the same options as in the sms kind. Of course, the voice is automated.

If you cut the call immediately after receiving, you're saving them a lot of money (I'm assuming the cost for the air time forms a part of their balance sheet). Instead, you should just receive the call, put the phone aside and leave it like that, till the call ends, which happens after about three minutes in my case. The advantage of this method is:

Suppose they call X number of people per day. Let the maximum duration of each call be Y minutes. Let the actual duration of the call be Z minutes (most people just cut the call in the first 5 seconds). So, the total maximum duration of the calls per day is XY. Similarly, the total actual duration is XZ.

Now, by applying the above method, you'll be forcing AirTel to spend XY minutes daily calling people instead of XZ. Suppose each call costs Rs. 0.50 for AirTel. You'd be forcing them to spend Rs. 0.50 * XY daily. Otherwise, if you cut the call in the first 5 or 10 seconds or whatever, AirTel would need to spend only Rs. 0.50 * XZ daily. So, you'd save them S = Rs. 0.50 X(Y – Z) per day by doing so. Counterattack! Do not let them save that amount. Let them pay for their unwanted nonsense.

Let us apply the above formula to a probable situation. AirTel has a subscriber base of about 15 million in India. Suppose AirTel calls 1 lakh people in all per day. X = 1,00,000. Let the maximum duration of a call, Y = 3 minutes. Let the actual duration be 5 seconds i.e., Z = 1/12 minutes (definitely there will be people who'll be taking such calls well but let's ignore them in this study for they constitute a minority).

Now, S = 0.50 * 1,00,000 * (3 – 1/12) = Rs. 1,04,165.00.

Let us round it to Rs. 1 lakh – which is a substantial amount. In a month, this would become Rs. 30 lakh. Over a year, Rs. 1 lakh * 365 = Rs. 365 lakh = $800,000.00 (approx.) – not a small amount – considerable damage!

Just stats I know and AirTel wouldnt be foolish enough to spend such an amount on advertising but still, you are making them pay something extra.