The phone call you can handle without answering
Your phone rings while you are sitting in a meeting. The screen identifies the caller as your broadband provider. That part is not especially new: modern phones can often suggest the identity of a business using information from operators and caller-identification databases.
What happens next is different. The screen explains that the company is calling to arrange a fibre installation and presents a button marked “Book installation time”. You select a slot, put the phone away and return to the meeting. You have dealt with the reason for the call without answering it.
Finnish companies Scailarc, Elisa and Nokia have demonstrated precisely that experience in a proof of concept using the new Jolla Phone. Their interactive calling system does more than attach a company name to an incoming number. It sends verified, interactive content through the mobile network and displays it inside the phone’s native calling interface while the phone is still ringing.
The recipient can see not only who is calling, but why, and may be able to complete the task immediately.
The companies describe their demonstration as the first mobile call in which a customer completed a call-related action without answering. But what appears distinctive here is the combination of verified context, an actionable interface inside the native dialler and access to that interface before a voice conversation begins.
It turns the incoming-call screen from a caller label into a small service application, but it also raises an obvious question:
Why make the call at all?
If Elisa only wants a customer to choose an installation time, why make their phone ring?
The company could send an SMS, email or Rich Communication Services message containing a booking link. The customer could open it whenever convenient, and the service would work on far more of today’s phones. No new support from handset manufacturers, mobile operators and native diallers would be needed.
So while the fibre example demonstrates that the technology works, it does not necessarily demonstrate that customers need it. Anyone who owns a phone knows that the telecoms industry has a habit of presenting technically impressive features before establishing whether they solve a real problem. Adding buttons and forms to a call is not automatically an improvement if the information could have arrived more conveniently as a message.
But the case becomes stronger when the purpose of the call is sensitive, urgent or too complicated to predict in advance.
Imagine that a hospital calls while you are at work. Your phone may recognise the number, but you might not want colleagues to know who is calling, let alone why. Nor do you necessarily want to leave an important meeting before knowing whether the call concerns an appointment, a routine administrative question or something more urgent.
An interactive screen could provide a discreet explanation: confirm an appointment, contact the outpatient clinic or ask the hospital to call again after 17.00. If the matter requires a conversation, you can leave the room and answer. If it does not, you can respond privately without speaking.
The value lies in keeping both options open: deal with a simple request silently or move into a conversation when the situation demands it.
A bank investigating a suspicious payment could offer an immediate button to freeze the card, while retaining the option to speak to an employee. A delivery company could let the recipient redirect an urgent parcel. A public-service organisation could provide authenticated instructions during a time-sensitive situation.
The technology could also give deaf and hard-of-hearing people, people with speech impairments and anyone temporarily unable to speak another way to respond to a caller. The interactive element would not replace proper accessibility services, but it could make more routine calls usable without forcing the recipient onto an entirely separate channel.
In these situations, IMS Data Channel is not an elaborate substitute for a text message. It is a bridge between self-service and human conversation.
How IMS Data Channel works
IMS Data Channel is a mobile-network technology that adds a real-time data connection to an ordinary 4G or 5G phone call.
IMS stands for IP Multimedia Subsystem, the network architecture operators use to provide services such as voice calls over 4G and 5G. While the conventional part of the connection carries speech or video, the additional data channel can carry buttons, forms, identity information, images and documents.
These appear inside the phone’s native calling environment. In principle, the customer does not have to download the caller’s app, create another account or follow a link in a text message.
IMS Data Channel is not a proprietary Scailarc invention. The technology was included in 3GPP’s Release 16 standards and is now covered by a series of 3GPP and GSMA specifications intended to make compatible phones and networks work together.
In that sense, it resembles what Rich Communication Services, or RCS, has done for messaging. RCS added images, typing indicators and interactive business functions to the traditional text message. IMS Data Channel attempts something similar with the phone call.
The notable detail in the Finnish demonstration is timing. Published GSMA material generally describes IMS Data Channel as transferring content during an ongoing, active session. Scailarc’s application appears while the recipient’s phone is still ringing.
The companies have not disclosed exactly how the pre-answer interaction was implemented. It is nevertheless the feature that most clearly separates this proof of concept from earlier examples centred on active calls.
Who are Scailarc, Elisa, Nokia and Jolla?
Scailarc is the least familiar name in the partnership. The Finnish technology company is developing software that brings secure, interactive and visual content into phone calls without requiring customers to install a separate app. It created the solution used in the demonstration, with support from Nokia and Elisa.
Elisa is Finland’s telecommunications market leader. It provides mobile, broadband and digital services to more than 2.8 million consumer, corporate and public-sector customers in Finland and Estonia, while also selling software internationally. Elisa supplied both the operator environment and the customer-service scenario.
Nokia no longer makes the consumer phones for which most people remember it. It is now primarily a network-infrastructure company. Its Network as Code platform gives developers access to selected network capabilities through application programming interfaces, or APIs. In this experiment, those capabilities support caller identification, helping establish a trusted interaction between the company and customer.
There is also a fourth participant in the practical demonstration. The call was received on a Jolla Phone. Jolla is a Finnish company that develops Sailfish OS, a mobile operating system with its roots in MeeGo, the platform once developed by Nokia and Intel. Its involvement provided something essential: access to the handset software and native calling environment in which the interactive screen appeared.
Together, the four participants cover the chain required to make the experience work. Nokia supplies programmable network capabilities, Elisa operates the mobile service and provides the business setting, Scailarc builds the interactive layer, and Jolla brings it onto the handset.
Finland picks up an old telecoms thread
That combination makes particular sense in Finland.
In July 1991, Finnish prime minister Harri Holkeri made the first official GSM call over Radiolinja’s network, built using Nokia technology. Radiolinja later became part of Elisa. More than three decades later, Nokia and Elisa are again working together on a different interpretation of what a mobile call can do.
Nokia subsequently lost its dominance in consumer handsets, but Finland retained much of the engineering talent, standards expertise and telecoms infrastructure built during its rise. Jolla is a direct product of that legacy, founded after Nokia abandoned MeeGo during its move to Windows Phone.
This experiment brings those strands together: an established network supplier, Finland’s leading telecoms operator, an independent mobile platform descended from Nokia-era software and a younger company trying to turn a telecom standard into something customers might use.
Other interactive calling projects
The Finnish project is part of a wider effort usually described as 5G New Calling. Operators and equipment companies have been exploring ways to add visual and interactive functions to native voice and video calls for several years.
In 2022, Telefónica, Ericsson and Samsung demonstrated touchscreen interactions and content sharing during a 5G call using IMS Data Channel. The proof of concept ran on Samsung Galaxy S21 phones and automatically loaded interactive functions onto the call screen without requiring users to install separate apps.
Telefónica later worked with Ericsson and software company MATSUKO to integrate three-dimensional, or “holographic”, calling into native smartphone diallers. The 2024 demonstration transmitted a one-way holographic representation of the caller, accompanied by two-way audio. The companies acknowledged that standards, bandwidth and synchronisation still presented obstacles to wider implementation.
China Mobile and Huawei have moved closer to commercial deployment. In 2025, they announced the rollout of an IMS Data Channel service in China’s Henan province, offering functions such as screen sharing, real-time translation and access to an interactive service centre from the call interface. China Mobile had worked with manufacturers including Vivo, Oppo, Honor, Xiaomi, Samsung and Huawei to adapt handsets for the technology.
These projects establish that putting data and interactive functions inside a call is not itself a world first. What Scailarc, Elisa and Nokia are trying to add is a practical pre-call layer: the ability to understand and act on a request before deciding whether a conversation is needed.
Booking an installation may sound less spectacular than appearing as a hologram. Whether it is more useful depends on whether a call was the right way to initiate the contact in the first place.
Could verified interactive calls reduce fraud?
Interactive calling may have another advantage over a conventional message: authentication.
Consumers have repeatedly been warned not to follow links in unexpected texts and emails, even when the sender appears to be a bank, hospital or government agency. Phone numbers and sender names can be spoofed too.
According to the companies, Nokia’s Network as Code capabilities support caller identification, while Scailarc verifies application content and digital fingerprints to help prevent hijacking. They also say the data is encrypted and that the interface runs in an isolated environment inside the phone’s native calling application, preventing it from accessing phone data.
These are security claims attached to a proof of concept rather than the track record of a deployed commercial service.
“Verified” can also mean several different things. The network may confirm which organisation initiated the call. Someone must still ensure that the content shown on the screen was authorised by that organisation. Customers also need to know what information will be returned when they press a button.
A polished interface that merely looks official could make a fraudulent call more convincing rather than less. Any commercial version would need a clear and consistent way to show that both the caller and the interactive content have been authenticated.
There is a less welcome possibility too. Nokia lists in-call advertising among the potential applications for IMS Data Channel. The same technology that could make a hospital call more discreet might give marketers a new interactive surface on the one screen people cannot entirely avoid.
The value of the system will consequently depend on who is allowed to use it, which actions are permitted and how carefully the network distinguishes a useful service request from a verified sales pitch.
When will IMS Data Channel become available?
The companies say the solution is standards-based and independent of a particular device model or mobile operating-system ecosystem. That describes its intended portability, not universal availability today.
The phone and its native dialler must support IMS Data Channel. The operator needs compatible IMS infrastructure, and the organisation making the call requires its own integration. Communication between customers on different networks introduces another interoperability hurdle.
A standard can tell networks and phones how to communicate. It cannot make Apple, Google, handset manufacturers and hundreds of mobile operators implement the necessary technology.
That makes Jolla’s role significant. Its participation allowed the companies to demonstrate the complete experience on a real handset, but widespread use will depend on support from the devices people already own. GSMA specifications define handset requirements and interfaces between networks, but turning those documents into a broadly available service will require cooperation across an unusually long chain of companies.
Scailarc, Elisa and Nokia have therefore demonstrated a possibility, not announced a service ready to appear on millions of phones.
For a routine installation booking, a message may remain the more sensible option. The technology becomes compelling when the contact is urgent, sensitive or unpredictable: when a simple button may solve the problem, but a human conversation must remain close at hand.
Liked this article? You can support our independent journalism via our page on Buy Me a Coffee. It helps keep MoveTheNeedle.news focused on depth, not clicks.