- published: 25 Jan 2013
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A shanty town (also called a squatter settlement) is a slum settlement (sometimes illegal or unauthorized) of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap materials: often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns, which are usually built on the periphery of cities, often do not have proper sanitation, electricity or telephone services.
Shanty towns are mostly found in developing nations, or partially developed nations with an unequal distribution of wealth. In extreme cases, shanty towns have populations approaching that of a city. As of 2005[update], one billion people, one-sixth of the world's population, live in shanty towns.
Shanty may have derived from the Irish Gaelic seantigh, pronounced shant-tí, meaning "old house". The synonym shack may also have passed from Gaelic into English from teach, pronounced chaċ, meaning "house". Both words appeared in American English in the 1880s, when Irish migrants were flooding into New York's tenements.
A busy signal (or busy tone or engaged tone) in telephony is an audible or visual signal to the calling party that indicates failure to complete the requested connection of that particular telephone call.
There are several distinctly different types of busy signals:
Many different countries have different signalling tones that act as "busy signals".