I love everything about this. I've often thought families that wanted to extend their network between trusted friends could set up a literal private branch exchange (aka PBX) with only their friends as fellow members.You have a way for people to call each other without handing kids a smart phone and can also avoid the inevitable costs and unwanted calls associated with real land lines.
Show HN: Baby's first international landline
11–20 of 61 posts
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#12I really like this... except you should add a special case for 911. I strongly believe that all phones, and anything that looks like phones, should be able to dial out in an emergency. Obviously, this can raise its own problems -- you'll have to train the kids not to randomly dial 911! -- but you never know what circumstances might exist where someone in a panic reaches for the nearest phone.
Kari's Law [0] is relevant here. Not strictly applicable as this is not a MLTS (phone line multiplexer), but very much in line with the spirit of the law as it was adopted after a child was unable to dial 911 from a motel phone.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#13I really like this... except you should add a special case for 911. I strongly believe that all phones, and anything that looks like phones, should be able to dial out in an emergency. Obviously, this can raise its own problems -- you'll have to train the kids not to randomly dial 911! -- but you never know what circumstances might exist where someone in a panic reaches for the nearest phone.
Also if you want to test dial 911 I’ve been told you can schedule a test call with you local dispatch! I setup a phone system with Asterisk for fun a while ago and I avoided emergency calls because I didn’t know how to safely test it
You can, but you should prefer dialling 933 which will use the same routing infrastructure, and reads out the address that 911/933 believes is associated with your connection. Does not take time away from a human dispatcher so should always be preferred unless there is a critical reason to test 911.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#14Nice project! Another route you might consider is flashing a small custom firmware on the Grandstream HT80x so the logic runs directly on the ATA instead of on the Pi/Asterisk side. I wrote a tool that can extract and repack Grandstream firmware ( https://github.com/BigNerd95/Grandstream-Firmware-HT802/tree... ). For example, I made a simple ARM patch that intercepts incoming caller IDs and triggers a bash script to…
I cant remember the circumstances, it might have involved an RMA with grandstream, but I vaguely recall this tool saving my bacon at one point.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#15>only permit calls to be made to an adult-controlled set of numbers
timezones and “awake/asleep” schedules, to avoid calling Europe at their 1am
prevent inbound calls entirely
This is interesting. Was there a serious issue while using a regular landline?
As a former toddler myself, I think that the worst I got up to was calling the radio station and giving bad traffic tips.
My overseas family had such a long number, stored in a book in my grandmothers handwriting, that theres little chance I would have connected and woken them up.
Is this designed to counter a specific threat model?
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#16>only permit calls to be made to an adult-controlled set of numbers timezones and “awake/asleep” schedules, to avoid calling Europe at their 1am prevent inbound calls entirely This is interesting. Was there a serious issue while using a regular landline? As a former toddler myself, I think that the worst I got up to was calling the radio station and giving bad traffic tips. My overseas family had such a long number,…
... Do you not see a toddler dialing random numbers as anything but a nuisance to the people whose numbers they happened to dial? Or waste emergency services' time? (their numbers are intentionally easy to dial, and likely more recognisable being repeated in media even to the young after all)
It feels like you're forcing other people to take the effort of dealing with your child in that situation.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#17Nice project! Another route you might consider is flashing a small custom firmware on the Grandstream HT80x so the logic runs directly on the ATA instead of on the Pi/Asterisk side. I wrote a tool that can extract and repack Grandstream firmware ( https://github.com/BigNerd95/Grandstream-Firmware-HT802/tree... ). For example, I made a simple ARM patch that intercepts incoming caller IDs and triggers a bash script to…
This seems neat. I have some minor stuff I'd like an ATA to do differently [1], and maybe I can make it work with this, if I get motivated!
[1] I don't quite remember what I wanted to do, so that's the first part! But I have a telephone controlled gate, with 3-pair wiring, and right now I'm using two pair for phone inbound and outbound, and one pair I can't use... If I can get the ATA to interface well enough with just one pair to the gate, then I can use two pair for ethernet, and I don't need to use a modem to interface with the gate over the phoneline.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#18>only permit calls to be made to an adult-controlled set of numbers timezones and “awake/asleep” schedules, to avoid calling Europe at their 1am prevent inbound calls entirely This is interesting. Was there a serious issue while using a regular landline? As a former toddler myself, I think that the worst I got up to was calling the radio station and giving bad traffic tips. My overseas family had such a long number,…
... Do you not see a toddler dialing random numbers as anything but a nuisance to the people whose numbers they happened to dial? Or waste emergency services' time? (their numbers are intentionally easy to dial, and likely more recognisable being repeated in media even to the young after all) It feels like you're forcing other people to take the effort of dealing with your child in that situation.
There's another thread here where they are talking about the necessity to make emergency services numbers available anyway, because kids are often the people who make the crucial phone call when a parent has an accident. And its doubtful that the parent is going to collapse, push an ansible update to his project, and then have the kid dial emergency.
Theres potential for nuisance, but not one that seemed like a big threat for that whole period where toddlers routinely had access to phones.
I asked because I am interested in whats happening, maybe they have a unique situation/environment that requires this. Maybe they have phone jockey kids who mastered the technique.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also if you want to test dial 911 I’ve been told you can schedule a test call with you local dispatch! I setup a phone system with Asterisk for fun a while ago and I avoided emergency calls because I didn’t know how to safely test it
You can, but you should prefer dialling 933 which will use the same routing infrastructure, and reads out the address that 911/933 believes is associated with your connection. Does not take time away from a human dispatcher so should always be preferred unless there is a critical reason to test 911.
Oh this sounds much better, thank you!
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#20I really like this... except you should add a special case for 911. I strongly believe that all phones, and anything that looks like phones, should be able to dial out in an emergency. Obviously, this can raise its own problems -- you'll have to train the kids not to randomly dial 911! -- but you never know what circumstances might exist where someone in a panic reaches for the nearest phone.
Also if you want to test dial 911 I’ve been told you can schedule a test call with you local dispatch! I setup a phone system with Asterisk for fun a while ago and I avoided emergency calls because I didn’t know how to safely test it
Hmmm, I wonder if something like this applies to testing emergency-apps on my smartphone.
Unlike a landline, it's harder to say where it ends up or who'll get angry at you for "testing".