Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

charge.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 195 posts

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#111

Post by usuallycharlie »

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…

You can use something like Vitelity vMobile which routes your cell phone as an extension to a PBX system/SIP server. This gives you total and complete control of what happens on incoming and outbound calls. For example, you could have your cell phone number give an IVR menu, ring forever, play hold music, you're only limited by your SIP server. This is the closest I've seen to providing your own dialtone.

I used it for a while and the only con---and it is a major con for me---is that, like most innovative or unique MVNOs, it's riding on Sprint. And Sprint is really terrible, at least where I live, which made the service great, except that getting data to work often involved walking around in large circles til I was able to catch an LTE signal.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#112

Post by nickpsecurity »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #104
nickpsecurity wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe record a message from a text-to-speech program that says "Voicemail service is currently unavailable for a week of planned maintenance. Please try another time." Then, the person listening might say, "Down? And wait a week? Nevermind..."

I once stuck a telco "This number is no longer in service" recording (w/ the "special information tone" preceding) and as much silence as the voicemail system would allow as my outgoing greeting. People _still_ left messages...

Wow. That's ridiculous. The human problem is really ubdermining my solution as usual.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#114

Post by 50CNT »

nathan_f77 wrote: post #43
rfrey wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... takes offence at being called a geek ... calls out the company for using Go instead of Erlang Just sayin'. :)

Yeah I'm a nerd or a geek, if that means I'm interested in programming and IT. But if you ask Google for some definitions, it still tells you: nerd: a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious. geek: an unfashionable or socially inept person. And it's also kind of patronizing. I don't know, something about it just doesn't sit right with me.

I assume when you come on Hacker News you feel offended for being called a hack and a criminal :P.

Colloquial usage of these terms has shifted massively, to the point where the most common definitions I hear from people are:

    nerd: someone with an obsessive interest in certain intellectual areas, especially academic/technological things (math/computers/the sciences/etc.)

    geek: someone with an obsessive interest in certain subsets of popular culture, especially ones relating to fiction (games/comics/novels/etc.)
Now 'dork', that still has the old ring to it.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#115

Post by noyesno »

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…

I think many phone companies have an incentive to keep the voicemail systems up and running - if your call is forwarded to a voice mail service the call is connected and therefore billed. If you reach the automated messages for failed call setups (busy/terminal cannot be reached etc), they are not billable.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#117

Post by 16th_hop »

sandworm101 wrote: post #116

Ok, yes. I clicked on the OP's "your-carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com" link. I was wonder how it would react to my using OpenDNS. Good joke. Not the results I was expecting.

I think something is up with the site, see URL of the Rickroll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ#sup_Charge,_got_...

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#118

Post by sandworm101 »

16th_hop wrote: post #117
sandworm101 wrote: post #116

Ok, yes. I clicked on the OP's "your-carrier-is-hijacking-dns.com" link. I was wonder how it would react to my using OpenDNS. Good joke. Not the results I was expecting.

I think something is up with the site, see URL of the Rickroll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ#sup_Charge,_got_...

My bad for not scanning the entire url. That message was lost on my tiny address bar. But it does look like a legit message to charge.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#119

Post by NegativeLatency »

stanleydrew wrote: post #37
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…

Charge CEO here. We can definitely disable voicemail for you. I actually have it disabled myself. Just send us an email to get it removed. We should probably just add a checkbox for it in the management UI though now that I think about it.

Any plans to offer GSM? I'd love to ditch AT&T but I'm not excited about being on sprint's network.

Re: Charge, a phone company with features for nerds

#120

Post by mst »

supercoder wrote: post #66
burfog wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Doesn't matter with caller ID

Unless you ever have children or ever take a shit.
Post reply on HN