[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ThomasS3:
Dear all,

I am getting desperate, so I hope someone can help. I need to switch the DTMF from long tones to short tones (and maybe also adjust the timing between tones).

I run a small company and make a lot of international calls - unfortunately, I'm rarely in my home office, so I often make the calls 'on the road'. I have a dial-through service where I call up a central exchange (local number) and then dial the international number via DTMF in order to get reasonable calling rates, but that no longer works on my Android phone. Ever since I bought my Samsung Galaxy S3 a year and a half ago, I have been searching high and low for information about how to control the DTMF tones, but it seems that that functionality has been removed from Android to quash competition.

My very old "dumb phone" could store contacts' phone numbers as +12345678#00123456789, when I got my first smart phone (Nokia N900) I just had to change the hash mark to a comma and it worked. When I switched to an HTC Desire Z, DTMF worked OK as well. But, when I busted up my HTC, I got lured by Samsung with the Galaxy S3 and that is when my troubles began.

First, DTMF control was removed from T-Mobile versions of Android and then it was removed from the base version of Android - to support the telecom companies, NOT because there is no longer a need for DTMF among the Android user base. It is clearly against the interests of T-Mobile and other carriers in the Android coalition that Android can do DTMF properly. T-Com, also part of Deutsche Telekom, is sitting with monopoly on the landline infrastructure in Hungary among several other countries in Central Europe and it is quite clear that Deutsche Telekom does not like competition. I am very sure that is why Android DTMF tones are now purposely designed to be incompatible with the exchanges that "foreign" carriers rent from the likes of T-Com!

As long as I cannot control the DTMF tones, then I do not have the freedom to use the US carrier for international calls from my S3 and that means an extra EUR 40-80 into the pockets of Deutsche Telekom - every single month!

I am a very small business, so the extra costs is a hefty sum that could much better be used on marketing or serving my clients. If I am limited to only calling through the US carrier when using my office landline, then the level of service I provide drops and in the long run that will cost me more than the exorbitant call rates.

Please help!

I am getting so desperate that I am considering buying a Windows phone (if it can do DTMF) or a "dumb phone" and then only use the S3 as a WiFi internet/sodoku capable PDA.

Do any of you know of an application or a ROM that will give me my freedom back?

- I know about VoIP alternatives, but the quality is not reliable enough when I only have one single chance to win over a potential client.

- I have recently rooted my S3 and switched to an Andriod Revolution HD ROM, but that did not give me DTMF either - "only" a much faster and significantly less battery consuming Android experience.

- I have tried looking under *#0011#, *#7284#, *#9090#, *#0*#, and *#9900# but without success (the codes I found to work on my S3 with Revolution HD).

- I have also found several DTMF apps in Google Play, but they are all DTMF generators designed to send DTMF tones from the device speaker and into the mic of a landline phone, so not what I am looking for.

- I have done numerous searches on XDA and in general, but all DTMF questions found are either unanswered or with outdated answers (the setting is no longer to be found in the Dialler app).