Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with telephony

Yes my refrigerator is running, and you need to get a lawyer

Anonymous — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:11:18 -0800

Legal status of inadvertently sent (supposed to be internal) automated test calls which could be viewed as "prank calls" that go accidentally to 7-13 unsuspecting recipients. And more. YANML i know, please read details. SHORT GROSSLY SIMPLIFIED QUESTION:
I know YANML:

Legally, if you are the cause of ~10 people getting something they characterize a prank call which includes their name, and the ANI was masked so that a random 3rd party is blamed, what jeopardy are you in? The 3rd party knows who you are. The Masking was not intentional, just an unfortunate system setting.

What type of lawyer should you consult?

(looking at context below) is consulting a lawyer at this point wise?

Is the justification that it was an honest mistake that was made while tired and doing an assigned, routine task as part of your job acceptable? Even if there were some lack of protocol that were still ultimately your fault and exacerbated the situation?

As a decent person and morally what is the right course of action (please view context below)

What is the worst case scenario here?

Throw away email = telephony.lawyer@gmail.com

LONG RAMBLING CONTEXT (and blanket apology):

I work for a company that does massive calls for institutions, usually as emergency notifications and "reverse 911" type things. WE DO NOT DO SOLICITATIONS, POLITICAL CALLS, or any of the other stuff that gives broadcast telephony a bad name.

I was preparing to do scheduled, routine testing at 3:00am two nights ago (so we didn't affect users). It was all supposed to be internal tests and I was intending to send test messages to my own cell phone. Easy, no problems.

I was working from home, it was late, I was tired and this is something I do a million times a day as the course of my work. at 10:00pm, before the tests the following morning (and before I tried to catch at least a few hours sleep) I needed to make sure some software that I had just installed on my personal computer was going to work for the 3am tests. I was sending a message essentially in command prompt, back-end method which sends out immediately after you select a list. I thought I had selected a list with only my own personal cell phone and information in it. Somehow I selected the wrong list, it was a list from a customer with live data in it. It was a list I had been working on scripting a solution on earlier that day... somehow I sent it to myself with an ambiguous name thinking it was MY cell phone and test data.

I realized the mistake after the system validation message said "sending to 30 contacts" when I was just supposed to send to one (me)! I immediately tried to terminate the message, but it was too late and around 7-13 people got called.

So here is where it gets sticky. This test call I sent out can insert computer spoken portions, usually the name of someone to whom it is addressed. The accidental list (and my test list of course) both had recipient's names (I work with this type of list a lot as part of my day job... testing is just something I get stuck with at times).

So an unfortunate 2 second oversight and failure to double check which numbers I am sending to gets worse because people are now not just getting a random call, but a random call that features their name in it.

Where it gets more sticky is that the message I sent did not indicate it was a test. Like i said, it was late, I was in a hurry, I was just sending to my self so I wrote some thing for the CPU to say along the lines of free association gibberish that I just typed out on the spot. "message foo bar, go to the playground pick up your baby [name] from play time at [date] thanks bye". or something like that.

Bad form, bad protocol, totally my fault, no excuses. But that is what happened.

Now, the final part, the part that has me worried:
OK, so on the test platforms we use you can define what the outgoing caller ID is (ANI). Usually we just use company numbers, or personal number, or gibberish numbers. In this case it was my test platform but the caller ID number had been initialized in the account by someone else, so I never looked into what the number was. It was a local number so I thought it was one of the companies #s, or some random disconnected number, or ... I don't know, never thought about it.

Again, my responsibility, my fault, my bad. I should have thought about it.

But, when the call went out, I tried to stop it, which I prevented most of the calls, but some still went through. I informed who I needed to inform in the company, fretted over it for 20 minutes but realized there was very little else I could do, and went to sleep so I could do the tests at 3am.

So, when this call goes out to these people, who are understandably confused, a little shocked that it has their name, and some apparently angry, they called the caller ID number back.

It WAS a random number, but apparently, to a real person.

I found this out yesterday when this person called my cell phone and interrogated me about it. I'm not quite sure how he tracked me down (I have thoughts but they are irrelevant).

After at first I honestly did not know who he was. He explained what had happened to him (7 random people from another state called wondering why he was prank calling them) I connected the dots. I apologized, tried to explain in general terms that it was an honest mistake and generally everything I outlined above. I was a bit shocked so I may have admitted more than I should have, and this guy knew who I was through use of Facebook, so I am a bit unnerved

That said, he seems to be OK. By the end of the convo he was not mad at me and we actually chatted in a friendly manner about what he does and a mutual interest, but I don't know. Maybe he is just trying to psych me out or... I don't know. I have not really heard back from him. I called him back (at his request) to follow up, but only got a Voice Mail.

Anyway... This brings me to my question. obviously YANML, but what is the legal status of this? Should I consult a lawyer. And I am willing to admit maybe I should, but what type of lawyer would know something about this type of thing?

And on a decent person, moral level what should I do? Keep in mind, the people who were contacted are off limits. My company has expressly forbid me from contacting them (their customers). So basically what can I do to make it up to random guy?

I am not at all concerned about the company, I have informed the proper people above me, they are handling it to protect their interests. I need to protect my interests. I am 90% sure this will just blow over and maybe I'll buy this guy a beer and be done with it, but I want to prepare for that 10%.

Thanks Metafilter.

Please hold, someone will be with you shortly.

yoyoceramic — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:55:59 -0800

I want to run it in a radio show type of format... a conference call that is. I want to run a conference call in a radio show type of format, where I can see on a switchboard (on the computer screen I assume) a listing of the callers (preferably in the order they called).

Since I will be fielding only questions, this style is preferred so that I can be asked the question by the caller, then interact with the caller while the other listeners on the line can hear. After I reslove the question, I bring the next caller on the line.

Any software recommendations out there? Preferably ones that are free-low cost. I'm imagining something where the caller calls in and is greeted with, "Welcome to the Q&A session, you are caller number 5. Please enjoy the conversation and we will answer your question shortly"

A few questions upon the eve of an imminent move to Toronto.

setanor — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:12:52 -0800

TorontoFilter: We're moving next week from the US and have a few questions. Can you help us hit the ground running? After spending all of our lives so far in New England, we're moving to Toronto - she's going to school, and I'm going to be working, hopefully, among a few other things. These are just a few vaguely "miscellaneous" questions that have been bouncing around in our heads for the past few weeks as we wrap up our lives here - any help pointing us towards any answers would be really appreciated, as I don't really have the time right now to wade through Yelp, etc... and trust you guys way more anyway.

1. What bank? Are there any big national banks that are a big "nuh-uh" for you that live there? Are there any new, smaller banks in the area that are the way to go over TD, Scotia, etc. or would we be better off going with someone big and established?

2. Zipcar, Autoshare, other or none of the above? We'd love to be able to head out to the land of Ikea and big-boxes every so often for things we might need, and I'd love to be able to drive out into the country (Prince Edward county, Bruce Peninsula) but we're not bringing our car.

3. We like good beer. We've been spoiled where we live now by one of the best places to drink crazy, awesome beer in the country. I know not a lot of the stuff we love here gets exported (Dogfish, Stone, etc..) but also that there is a lot of great beer from Canada that I have yet to discover. So, this is a two-part question: what Canadian-brewed beer is most similar to my favorite, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA? Second, what's the best place to go drink great beer in Toronto where there's a rotating tap and maybe some crazy stuff on cask every so often and people are really into trying lots of new things?

4. We're going to be living out west near Dovercourt. What's the best farmers market in the area, and what's the best place (market/shop) to go to get really awesome locally-farmed meats and produce?

5. Finally, if we plan on making a fair amount of calls to the US, what is our best option? Are there cell plans with fair calling rates to the US, or would we be better off just using our mobiles in Canada and some sort of Skype/Gchat/VOIP solution for our calls home?

Please help us improve our office phone system on the cheap.

4ster — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:38:24 -0800

I work in a small office with a small budget where the only full-time employees are my assistant and I, and we have separate offices. Our office has two phone lines. When one is busy, the other rings. Line one is our published office number. We each have our own voice mailbox. The problem is that you only get the "Press 1 to speak to [her], press 2 to speak to [me]" when both lines are busy or no one answers. I want to set up things so that people can select who they would like to speak to before the phone rings on our end. My reason for this is to cut down on the number of distractions my assistant has to deal with, so I'd like for calls to me to come straight to me, so I can handle them for her.

Our phone company is Embarq, and their fees for having them change things around on their end are prohibitively expensive. I'm trying to see if there is some other way to accomplish that we can afford. I'm open to most anything, including forwarding calls to my (Sprint) Blackberry. However, nothing I can think of deals with the matter of my assistant having to deal with so many calls.

I know it is a long shot, but I'm just curious if there are any workarounds we have not considered.

Thanks.

Help me get my VOIP on!

teg4rvn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:40:43 -0800

Is VOIP (Voice over IP) really mature enough to get rid of the landline, and what would you do with my personal phone/business phone(s) situation?...story to follow. Currently have Cox Digital Voice and have been very satisfied with the service. Unfortunately, their unlimited local/long distance plan comes out to about $51/mo. once all the taxes are added on.

In our new lovely economy, even though I am employed, the wife and I have two side businesses that we'd like to veer away from having to use our personal cellphone numbers as business numbers.

As a result, we have considered VOIP to potentially get rid of our land line and consolidate three (or more?) phone numbers to our home, hopefully with the ability to distinguish via distinctive ringtones or phone display settings when a call is for the house, her business, or mine.

Without getting too much more complicated (and boring) where should I start? Is what I want to do even feasible?

A search of AskMeFi found a post about 2 years ago about VOIP that was somewhat similar to this topic. A post recommending providers is about a year old. That's a long time in an emerging technology.

Quality source for number of United States iPhone subscribers?

yesno — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:24:05 -0800

Quality source for number of United States iPhone subscribers? I need to cite how many US iPhone users there are, as of Q4 fiscal 2008 or Q1 fiscal 2009. Does anyone have a handy, reputable source?

Apple's quarterly statements seem to only list worldwide sales, and I can't find precise numbers in any AT&T filings. But, I'm bad at this.

Technical skills for managing a telephony network?

tkolar — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:50:04 -0800

Technical skills for managing a telephony network? If someone asked me the minimum technical skills (not knowledge) necessary to manage a large IP network, I would say "Cisco CLI, and some experience with SNMP". Oh, and maybe the ability to configure a Radius server.

Is there a similar base skill set for telephony? Any vendor who's UI has become so ingrained that everything else is basically just a variant? What's the 70% solution for telephony management?

Forwarding U.K. calls to U.S.

computech_apolloniajames — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:16:43 -0800

Can I set up a U.K. land line to forward incoming calls to a U.S.-based number? I work for a company in New York, and we'd like to field calls from the U.K. here.

Are there any other alternate methods of having a U.K.-based number ring on my U.S. phone?

What would be the costs (and any other factors, such as hassle) involved with this?

Open-Source VOIP for personal / educational use

amtho — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:00:24 -0800

Can anyone recommend an open-source-protocol-based just-for-home-use VOIP provider & software? I'm pretty sure I don't want Skype, pretty sure I don't want Yahoo Messenger - security issues, not knowing what's really going on with these packages once they're installed, plus the license/privacy/etc. agreements are long and pretty bad. I'd be new to VOIP, but based on the research I've done (and I _actually read_ the Skype EULA/TOS, and started to read the > 20 pages (two columns) I printed out about Yahoo Messenger), I don't want these. But I want to talk to new friends in France and French-speaking Africa as I continue studying the language!

Can anyone recommend a secure, friendly, audited VOIP system? I read a little about Asterix, but that sounds more like it's for businesses setting up a whole VOIP system with server. Maybe a VOIP provider using Asterix? What do I even want?

I don't mind paying a little (can't pay as much as a cell phone plan would charge), but I think I'll need something that my pen pal / whatever pal can install and use for free, even if he or she is in Côte d'Ivoire or something. And pay or not, I think I really want open source.

I did see other VOIP questions on AskMe, but nothing addressing these specific needs.

If anyone local to Chapel Hill wants to help me practice awful French in exchange for help with English (I'm real good at English), I might be interested in that, too.

Thanks!

Mobile-to-POTS convertor?

Electrius — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:32:17 -0800

How do I hook up a mobile phone to a regular, POTS "hard phone"? Most of the time, I'm at home and it would be easier for me to use a regular, large-size telephone instead of craning my neck to try to use the little mobile phone that I have. If it matters, I'm in the USA and have Sprint.

What is the technical bible of the cell phone industry?

Pastabagel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:05:25 -0800

Asking for a friend: What is a very good technical text for understanding current and future wireless telephony standards, beginning with the basics about CDMA and TDMA and covering through 3G, LTE, LTE-Advanced, WiMax and beyond? He's looking for the "Bible" of wireless telephony, the equivalent of what Horowitz & Hill is to basic electrical engineering. Thanks.

Why does Skype not want to take calls?

arniec — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:15:11 -0800

Important Skype Issue! I primarily use Skype for voicemails, however I am getting lots of complaints that Skype's line is busy. Every time I open Skype the preferences are set to only allow calls from people in my contact list. I keep setting them to allow calls from anyone and they keep going back to only accepting calls from people in my contacts list. Sometimes these settings reset while Skype is still open. I have not yet been able to determine a pattern. I know that every time I open Skype it's set to only take calls from people on my contact list, and I think that when I make calls it resets as well.

I have contacted Skype's technical support 10 days ago and they have not responded at all... I've Googled to no avail. This is extremely frustrating as I am a recent convert to Mac and I took Skype with me, but I never had these problems on my PC.

I do have Ecamm's Call Recorder for Skype installed, but I can't find any reason why it would be changing my settings.

Help! Please!

Fax Problems

mccarty.tim — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:51:56 -0800

How can I get my office's computer fax machine to receive faxes more reliably? My office has been having trouble with junk fax messages, so my boss decided he wanted me to install a fax modem on one of the computers, and have it receive faxes while the existing fax machine would send faxes (it's easier for the administrative assistant to use) and pick them up should the computer be down (it's an always on machine, as it does some other maintenance things on the network). The way I achieved this: I set up a splitter from the fax line and sent one line to the computer and one line to the machine. I used the default Windows XP fax software and set it up to receive faxes after 2 rings, and set the fax machine to pick up after 4 rings. That way, the computer gets the call by default.

What has been happening, though, is that some of the longer faxes are cut off early. The modem was bought from Newegg - it's listed as "ENCORE ENF656-ESW-NDPR 56Kbps PCI Bus (Plug & Play) Fax Modem - Retail". It was cheap and a brand I never heard of, but it was my impression that's how it is with near-obsolete technologies like 56K modems, and the ratings were good. The phone cords are short, so I don't think it's an issue of signal degradation, and the dedicated fax machine has never had any problems. Is this a software problem, and if so, what fax software would you recommend? Or should I have picked a different modem? I imagine the people on Newegg are reviewing it based on its performance for internet browsing. It's a V.92 modem.

I know there are fax-over-email services which would eliminate headaches, but I don't want to go that route, as my boss already pays for a dedicated fax line, has bought a fax machine, and just paid for the modem (although that was just around $10). I would hate to tell him he needs to change his fax number and pay a monthly fee just to avoid junk faxes.

Grand Central alternatives?

mr. creosote — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:10:05 -0800

I need suggestions for a Google Grand Central alternative. Namely a telephone web app that lets me have use of a local number. No VOIP suggestions, please. I like what Google Grand Central can do, but my wife is concerned about how big Google is getting, and prefers we use an alternative. Fair enough. We just want a "last phone number we'll ever need" type thing that forwards to any number we pick, with some web-based voicemail and call filtering abilities (including being able to block Out Of Area calls and stuff like that).

I use Kall8 for my business, which would be perfect, but unfortunately they have no local numbers for our area code.

I saw this MeFi thread which hit the nail square on the head, but the OP got a Grand Central invite and that squelched the discussion.

Any ideas? Google is bringing up far too much noise, unfortunately.

Caller id woes: no ones knows it's me

jdl — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:18:43 -0800

I have terrible cell reception in my house so I have been forwarding my cell calls to my home phone when I'm at home. This has worked great. There's a problem though. I'd really like to continue to make calls FROM my cell number. Is this possible (and legal)? I've seen ads for spoof calling cards, but that seems sketchy to me.

I have Vonage at home, which is another added problem because even if I choose to use it, it doesn't show my name. The whole point is that I want people to know that it is me calling and that typically means that I'm calling from my cell. I'd like that to be my main point of contact.

Am I out of luck or is this possible?

Cleaning up imported data in excel using VBA.

corpse — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 07:20:46 -0800

Cleaning up imported data in excel using VBA. I’m trying to clean up some muddy data that is the result of importing some ACD reports into Excel. The ACD reports are text files, and basically I want them to be formatted into a nice looking spreadsheet so I can do some calculations with the data. I’ve found this tutorial, but I’m looking for some more general VBA tutorials that deal with cleaning up data that has been imported into Excel.

Best way to sheathe an iPhone?

killdevil — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:07:15 -0800

What's the best lightweight, unobtrusive and form-fitting iPhone case? I have succumbed to the hype, and purchased one of these uninsurable monstrosities, despite the fact that I am known as a fumbler of cellphones. How can I ensure that my iPhone retains its shiny, flawless Jobs-ian perfection?

Help us break out of our RAZR jail!

delfuego — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:45:56 -0800

My wife and I both loathe our Motorola RAZRs, and fortunately, we're able to replace them at subsidized, new-customer pricing at the end of this month (October 28th, to be specific). We're Verizon Wireless customers for a slew of reasons, and are going to stick with VZW; does anyone have recommendations for phones we should consider? Just to flesh out what we're looking for, we both would like the phones to have decent cameras (for the odd on-the-street picture and whatnot), a memory card slot (so that when the camera takes a picture that's larger than VZW's 300Kb limit on SMS attachments, it's not locked on the phone forevermore), decent battery life (four or five hours of talk time, and no requirement that we recharge them every single night or find ourselves without a phone), and a usable interface. (You'll note that these are precisely the four places that the RAZR falls flat on its inadequate face.) I'd personally also love the phone to be capable of using VZW's Mobile Email, since I run an IMAP server, and being able to check/send email on my personal account wouldn't be such a bad function to have. I've played with the LG enV and the Samsung SCH-u740 in the store, and both seem nice... but I only mention that as a marker of the two phones that caught my eye in the store, and I'm sure that there are others that I should be considering (and probably reasons why I should notconsider either or both of those!).

And just to reiterate: for a bunch of reasons, we're going to stick with Verizon Wireless -- it's the only carrier that works on the Metro here in DC, it's the only carrier that has reliable service at both our workplaces, etc. -- so while I'd personally love an iPhone to be the answer, it isn't. Alas.

Finally making the jump to cellphone. Some questions...

dobbs — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:11:44 -0800

Finally getting a cell phone. The only "feature" I care about is reception. I don't need any doodads, email, mp3s, video etc. etc--the only exception is I need to store 75 numbers or more. Price doesn't matter. What phone should I get? I'm in Toronto (east end/beaches) but am willing to buy thru eBay or whatever if necessary. Should I go with Rogers? Fido? Telus? (Refuse to go with Bell so that one's out). Lastly, I'm okay with doodads and whatnot as long as they don't affect reception so if you've got opinions on those, please share. I'm on a Mac.

E.T wanna call home (over the internet)

markovich — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 03:22:29 -0800

Internet Telephony Query: What combination of hardware and software runs JaJah.com? JaJah allows you to make a call from a web line to a telephone line using your own number. My question is this: How exactly are they doing this? Is it possible to clone something like that using freely or commercially available software, or does one have to home roll everything?

Did they reach deals with all the telecom companies? Do they have a huge server farm making calls, or hundreds of modems?

How exactly does it work?

Does Skype turn you/him/her on?

londongeezer — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 01:09:02 -0800

Does Skype "smooth" your voice to make it sound mellower, more seductive etc.? That's my impression; but is there any evidence to support it? I suppose an analogous means of customer retention might be the use in shops of "slimming mirrors".

What's Wrong with a BUSY Signal!?!

polexxia — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 21:03:31 -0800

TelephonyFilter: Is there any Internet telephony provider that will allow you to receive incoming calls, but does NOT require that you have voicemail service? When I spoke with representatives at Skype, they said that the voicemail feature can not be disabled. I would be more than happy to use Vonage, however, due to the way my Internet is set up, it doesn't work (a known issue with this particular ISP). All I want is some way to set up a phone number and receive incoming calls ONLY--with NO voicemail, NO forwarding, NO call waiting. Is there any such service out there?

Is it possible to use Skype as a modem?

contessa — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:08:22 -0800

Finding out for my boss: Can Skype be used as a modem? No, you didn't mis-read that. He'd like to know if it is feasable to use Skype software as a modem (or component of a modem, with help from other software) to dial into modem-connected (POTS line) facilities that we have, and upload, view or download data from PCs or laptops using broadband or cellular/wireless.

My gut instinct tells me that no, it's not possible (how would the data stream be modulated/demodulated? Plus, skype is encrypted -- doesn't that mess things up?).

I've been searching Google now for 3 days, but putting the words "skype" and "modem" together get me 6 thousand hits about how it's possible to use Skype on 56k dialup. I've varied my search terms to exclude those kinds of results but I can't find anything that fits the bill.

So -- is it possible? Even theoretically? What is available, software-wise, that would make this work? Is there something obvious out there that I'm not even thinking of?

VoIP in Toronto?

Manhasset — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 07:45:37 -0800

Experience with Vonage or any VOIP in Toronto? I know it's been asked before but figure the technology may have improved. Also, what about some of their other products?

Just like 1-800-I-FEEL-OK

aubilenon — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:59:15 -0800

Scriptable multiline voice menu system for a one-day event. Does anyone offer this service? I'm looking for a way to set up a phone number that people can call in, type in a PIN, and then press various touch tone buttons to do various things through a set of scripts. There will be no live operators.

I am a competent programmer, and would want to provide all my own audio for the phone messages.

Important requirements:

Multiple lines (there will be 30 people calling this system (not at all once necessarily), and I don't want any of them to get a busy signal.

The scripts need to be able to log stuff or write to a DB or something, something which I have instant access to.

I only want to do this for one day, and of course I would like this to be as economical as possible, so installing my own hardware and a lot of phone lines is probably not going to cut it.

Does anyone know of any businesses that provide hosting for this kind of thing?