For some reason I thought it was for toddlers to call other toddlers. I think if you were looking for a feature to add, it would be to let kids call their friends. Could lead to some cute moments :)
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Show HN: Baby's first international landline
31–40 of 61 posts
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#32uhmm...
>>> As a weekend project, I hacked together a physical phone, a Raspberry Pi running Asterisk and Twilio, to let toddlers safely make international calls.
how often do toddlers make international calls???
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Was there a serious issue while using a regular landline? So a few other issues with landlines, in other countries: 1) Crazy expensive. 2) You can't sign-up for one anymore. 3) They may no longer be available. The cables have already been removed in some parts of Denmark.
In a lot of places a "landline" is: a) a phone using the ITU protocols, connecting to the router over ATM, or b) a straight up SIP / VOIP phone which just happens to be operated by your ISP, but which could, in principle, work anywhere, as long as it was connected to the internet, or c) a cell phone in a landline-like enclosure, perhaps with a carrier-side restriction that prevents its SIM card from working outside i…
That is pretty interesting, because I figured that maybe that would solve my issue of trying to get a cheap "landline". Sadly no. My ISP also doesn't want to do VOIP. They have the product, but doesn't sign up new customers.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#34uhmm... >>> As a weekend project, I hacked together a physical phone, a Raspberry Pi running Asterisk and Twilio, to let toddlers safely make international calls. how often do toddlers make international calls???
that probably depends how many close family members they have abroad.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#35uhmm... >>> As a weekend project, I hacked together a physical phone, a Raspberry Pi running Asterisk and Twilio, to let toddlers safely make international calls. how often do toddlers make international calls???
It's right there in the post:
> I built this so kids of expats can easily stay in touch with family on other continents.
Just think of families fleeing from war or persecution. This isn't rare by any measure, unfortunately.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#36uhmm... >>> As a weekend project, I hacked together a physical phone, a Raspberry Pi running Asterisk and Twilio, to let toddlers safely make international calls. how often do toddlers make international calls???
Ahem. Some people never heard of immigration/emigration?
(The system is valuable for adults too, if some of your relatives live in a country which blocks Whatsapp and other voice calling apps, like Russia or China).
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a lot of places a "landline" is: a) a phone using the ITU protocols, connecting to the router over ATM, or b) a straight up SIP / VOIP phone which just happens to be operated by your ISP, but which could, in principle, work anywhere, as long as it was connected to the internet, or c) a cell phone in a landline-like enclosure, perhaps with a carrier-side restriction that prevents its SIM card from working outside i…
That is pretty interesting, because I figured that maybe that would solve my issue of trying to get a cheap "landline". Sadly no. My ISP also doesn't want to do VOIP. They have the product, but doesn't sign up new customers.
Voip is a classic loss maker for ISPs.
Right up there with email servers and DNS.
It increases their attack surface and support costs without any real bottom line benefit.
I suspect I will be adding IPTV to that list in 5 years too.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#38>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,…
> Was there a serious issue while using a regular landline? So a few other issues with landlines, in other countries: 1) Crazy expensive. 2) You can't sign-up for one anymore. 3) They may no longer be available. The cables have already been removed in some parts of Denmark.
For arguments sake lets include voip in there under landline.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#39One sidenote is that the Twilio part is harder than it looks. Not because of technical factors, but because of the paid requirement. Twilio refused to take my money and upgrade me to a paid account, even though they forced me to go to their confusing KYC procedure, where they asked me many times to provide the same set of documents. Support was useless, it looked like an AI bot repeating the same thing, but this was…
I'm not sure if they've changed the process since your issues (hopefully) - I was using their trial and when it expired had to go through the KYC process. They under-promised by saying two working days to reach out, but everything was wrapped up within an hour and done over email.
I nearly moved away from Twilio having read the negative feedback, but my personal experience so far was very prompt support.
Re: Show HN: Baby's first international landline
#40One sidenote is that the Twilio part is harder than it looks. Not because of technical factors, but because of the paid requirement. Twilio refused to take my money and upgrade me to a paid account, even though they forced me to go to their confusing KYC procedure, where they asked me many times to provide the same set of documents. Support was useless, it looked like an AI bot repeating the same thing, but this was…
I'm not sure if they've changed the process since your issues (hopefully) - I was using their trial and when it expired had to go through the KYC process. They under-promised by saying two working days to reach out, but everything was wrapped up within an hour and done over email. I nearly moved away from Twilio having read the negative feedback, but my personal experience so far was very prompt support.
Hey, that's good to hear. Was it a recent experience for you? Maybe they heard some of the feedback and acted on it.
This encourages me to revisit them, not because I'm unhappy with my current provider, but rather because Twilio offers what I need (a number that can receive and send SMS) in regions where my current provider doesn't.