Charge, a phone company with features for nerds • Hacker News Board

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#51

Post by burfog » Sat, May 21, 2016, 9:17 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #11

Can I have no voicemail ? That's a feature I really want and it's not easy to do. If you configure a mobile phone line without voicemail, it will not just ring and ring and ring (as I hoped it would) - instead, the caller gets a message that "the number you have dialed is not accepting calls at this time" ... or some other message (depending on the carrier) that makes it sound like you don't pay your phonebill or som…

Back in the 1980s I was taught that callers should always count to 10 rings before giving up. It is rude to give up earlier because you may have interrupted somebody. The phone starts ringing, so they start to put away what they are doing and then go to the phone. By the time they get there, you might have hung up if you don't wait for 10 rings. When getting a call, normally you'd try to get to the phone unless you can't do it within 10 rings.

Some reasons for 10 rings:

* must wipe butt

* must get kids out of swimming pool

* must shut down the tractor (there exist loud outside ringers)

* must finish... because not Paris Hilton

* must put baby into a safe spot (crib, strapped into chair, playpen, etc.)

* must remove engine oil from hands

That was a world I liked better. Answering machines ruined it. At first they were set to at least 4 rings. This caused people to start hanging up earlier, and assuming that others would do likewise. If you assume this, you won't run for the phone, thereby discouraging people from waiting. It's a feedback loop. Later, answering machines were set to just 2 rings. I guess cell phones were the final nail in the coffin for the old 10-ring standard. Since many people would carry their phone, callers got used to immediate pick-up. Not every phone is a cell phone! Even if that were so, many of the old reasons still apply!

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#52

Post by nathan_f77 » Sat, May 21, 2016, 9:31 PM UTC

stanleydrew wrote: post #45

nathan_f77 wrote: post #31

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but if a company calls me a nerd or a geek, then it sounds like an insult. So it makes me feel slightly bad, and is not a great first impression. I think advertisers should stop doing that. Also, why would a voice/messaging company write most of their software in Go, instead of Erlang (or Elixir)? That would make more sense to me. Also, those are not even features! Congratulations on yo…

Didn't mean to offend. We consider ourselves nerds, and mean it affectionately. And I will accept your sarcastic congratulations on "basic" SSL best practices with pride. I think you'll find that HPKP implementations are currently still very rare, and I do not consider it "basic".

That's cool, I'll get over it! I still don't really like the word "nerd", but to be fair, I did struggle to come up with a better title.

And sorry for the sarcasm, it does look like you're doing everything right.

When you say almost all your software is written in Go, is that including the telecom stack? I just didn't think Go was ready to compete with the Erlang VM in that arena.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#53

Post by stanleydrew » Sat, May 21, 2016, 9:45 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #24

gonzo wrote: post #5

Looks interesting, but perhaps 'stanleydrew' aka Andrew Benton could disclose that this is his company? https://charge.co/team http://benton.io

There's nothing wrong with submitting stories about your own company on HN. Extra-special disclosure of that is not a norm here.

Yeah, not even sure how I would do that. Would be strange to jam it into the title.

I suppose I could have left the first comment after posting as an explanation.

Right now we're not well-known enough for anyone else to post our stuff, so it falls to me.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#54

Post by blhack » Sat, May 21, 2016, 9:54 PM UTC

jdc0589 wrote: post #3

For regular phone use, this seems like a worse version of Google Fi; granted, it supports more devices. Data is $3 more expensive per GB, and Sprint is your only option, vs Sprint or TMobile with Fi. Someone fill me in if I'm missing something.

Google fi turns me off because it seems to somehow be related to google voice.

I turned on a google voice number like 7 years ago, and used it essentially as a spamcatch. I still want google voice for something things (and would happily pay a few bucks a month for it if I needed to).

But I want google voice nowhere near my actual cell phone. I could decline to attach my cellphone to my GV number, but that means getting rid of my GV number, which still isn't something I want to do.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#55

Post by ikeboy » Sat, May 21, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #54

jdc0589 wrote: post #3

For regular phone use, this seems like a worse version of Google Fi; granted, it supports more devices. Data is $3 more expensive per GB, and Sprint is your only option, vs Sprint or TMobile with Fi. Someone fill me in if I'm missing something.

Google fi turns me off because it seems to somehow be related to google voice. I turned on a google voice number like 7 years ago, and used it essentially as a spamcatch. I still want google voice for something things (and would happily pay a few bucks a month for it if I needed to). But I want google voice nowhere near my actual cell phone. I could decline to attach my cellphone to my GV number, but that means getti…

Get a new Gmail address?

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#56

Post by ikeboy » Sat, May 21, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

stanleydrew wrote: post #53

tptacek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with submitting stories about your own company on HN. Extra-special disclosure of that is not a norm here.

Yeah, not even sure how I would do that. Would be strange to jam it into the title. I suppose I could have left the first comment after posting as an explanation. Right now we're not well-known enough for anyone else to post our stuff, so it falls to me.

How hard is it to get a sprint wholesale account?

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#57

Post by ac29 » Sat, May 21, 2016, 10:18 PM UTC

el_benhameen wrote: post #8

listic wrote: post #6

Is $50 per month considered little for the USA? > The average Charge customer spends less than $50 per month with us.

Yes. For two lines with a reasonable data plan on the cheapest network, I spend about $120 a month. On the larger carriers (last I checked) it'd be closer to $150-170.

How much data do you use? I have 2 lines with 6GB LTE each for a total of $80/month (plus taxes, etc) on T-mobile.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#58

Post by stanleydrew » Sat, May 21, 2016, 10:44 PM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #56

stanleydrew wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, not even sure how I would do that. Would be strange to jam it into the title. I suppose I could have left the first comment after posting as an explanation. Right now we're not well-known enough for anyone else to post our stuff, so it falls to me.

How hard is it to get a sprint wholesale account?

Pretty hard. Buy me a beer and I'll tell you about it sometime.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#59

Post by anotherevan » Sat, May 21, 2016, 10:50 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #34

joshbaptiste wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To get rid of VM notifications, I recorded 2 minute+ of silence as my VM greeting, zero VMs after that.

Ok, that's sort of workable ... EDIT: ok, actually not so much - if you are out of coverage area and your phone rings zero times and goes right to voicemail (that's how it works with carriers in the US) then the caller calls you and goes right to silence, and presumably they retry 1-2-3x and get frustrated ... not even sure this is the right number, etc. Whereas if the phone just rang and rang and rang, at least it w…

This was the message on my voice mail before I had switched to a carrier that made it easy to turn it off (that wasn't the reason I switched, that was a nice surprise):

---

Hi, this is Evan.

I will never ever ever ever listen to the voice mail you’re about to leave, because voice mail is a pain in the butt.

So if you actually want to reach me, you can either send me an SMS, send me e-mail, or try my home number.

Feel free to leave a voice message if you want, but remember, I will never ever listen to it. Have a nice day!

---

I don't actually give them the email or home number details on the assumption that if they don't have those already, they are probably someone who's call I'm that stressed about receiving.

Generally I got positive feedback once people did get in contact with me.

I did have a similar one on message bank on the home number, which also mentioned that I keep turning message bank off, and the phone company kept turning it back on again.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#60

Post by agwa » Sat, May 21, 2016, 11:24 PM UTC

stanleydrew wrote: post #45

nathan_f77 wrote: post #31

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but if a company calls me a nerd or a geek, then it sounds like an insult. So it makes me feel slightly bad, and is not a great first impression. I think advertisers should stop doing that. Also, why would a voice/messaging company write most of their software in Go, instead of Erlang (or Elixir)? That would make more sense to me. Also, those are not even features! Congratulations on yo…

Didn't mean to offend. We consider ourselves nerds, and mean it affectionately. And I will accept your sarcastic congratulations on "basic" SSL best practices with pride. I think you'll find that HPKP implementations are currently still very rare, and I do not consider it "basic".

HPKP is indeed quite rare. But I am very worried to see that you are pinning end-entity keys and have only a single backup pin. If you want to pin end-entity keys, I recommend pinning at least three backup keys, using both RSA and ECDSA of varying key sizes. You have to be very concerned with bricking your site from either losing your backup keys, or CAs/browsers rejecting your backup keys because cryptographic standards have changed. Pinning end-entity keys is not for the faint-hearted.

Cool product, by the way.