If you're in Boston without phone service, use this website to call your family

http://callyourfamily.twilio.ly/

by chrisacky • 13 years ago

398 66 13 years ago

callyourfamily.twilio.ly

cbhl• 13 years ago

The "Source on Github" link points to a repo that isn't public at the moment.

RobSpectre4• 13 years ago

Working on getting Travis setup now. Wanted to get the service up asap - code will be posted shortly.

sikhnerd• 13 years ago

It's always encouraging to see a startup use it's resources to help others. Unfortunately quite rare as well. Good job Twilio!

unreal37• 13 years ago

Cell service is shut down so that the terrorist cannot remote detonate any more bombs.

But if you have access to this website (internet access), then you have access to Skype and 100 other phone services... so why does this web site exist?

joshguthrie• 13 years ago

Skype isn't free.

Siecje• 13 years ago

You can make free calls from GMail

mbell• 13 years ago

> Cell service is shut down so that the terrorist cannot remote detonate any more bombs.

This is false. Verizon, Sprint and AT&T have confirmed its false, hours ago. The networks are likely overloaded and, as a result, spotty, but they have not been shut down.

RobSpectre4• 13 years ago

Lot of disinformation spreading about this. All I know is my friends couldn't call their folks, so I wrote the app.

No idea what the diagnosis or prognosis on the situation is there - we'll keep it up until we hear all the telecom infrastructure is nominal.

paperkettle• 13 years ago

"UPDATE, Monday, April 15, 6:08 p.m.: Wireless carriers say reports that authorities had shut down cellphone service in the Boston area are untrue."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/15/boston_ma...

salman89• 13 years ago

Can any of those other services give you ten minutes of free talk time without registering or downloading any software? Within 30 seconds from that link you can make a phone call, I don't think Skype or any other comparable services can do that reliably as Twilio can.

mikestew• 13 years ago

I ran the race today, and my cellphone has been going off all day (within minutes of the incident, far as I can tell, up to my last call an hour ago) with family and friends checking on my status (which is fine). I'm not saying the service has been good for all, and thanks to RobSpectre for setting this up, but I can say at least some phones have worked all day.

EDIT: mostly SMS, but at least a couple of incoming and outgoing calls without problems.

icambron2• 13 years ago

My cell service has also worked all day. I'm a bit confused about the status of the network, but I've tried to keep off the phone for most of the day to avoid flooding it.

andyfleming• 13 years ago

If only the whole screen wasn't bright red!

RobSpectre4• 13 years ago

Yeah. My bad. :/

Scaevolus• 13 years ago

Blue is a nice, calming color for a website or bikeshed.

brendanobrien• 13 years ago

Thanks Twillio for a proactive response to a horrible situation.

DivisibleByZero• 13 years ago

Simply amazing.

geekam• 13 years ago

Twilio is great. I read about their collaboration with the Polaris Project for Human Trafficking victims. It is always great to see companies standing up in the time of need.

nvk• 13 years ago

jrockway5• 13 years ago

That's useful.

This is one of those times when I remind people that it might be a good idea to get an amateur radio license and have a charged handheld always available. If you do, you'll be able to talk to people locally (and halfway across the world) for free, with no centralized infrastructure to fail. (All you have to do is get 26 out of 35 multiple choice questions correct and buy a $40 radio from Amazon. Then, free communication forever.)

--KD2DTW (/AE!)

cdjk3• 13 years ago

I agree, and was regretting not bringing my handheld on a trip this weekend (although I wasn't traveling in Boston, it reminded me I left it at home).

It requires a little more planning, however, as you have to have a communication protocol established with the parties you want to communicate with (primary and secondary frequencies, and when - i.e. 5 minutes past the hour or something like that). You also are likely going to have to rely on simplex, since repeaters will be jammed or used be ARES/Red Cross/etc during a major disaster or emergency.

Now if only the engineers who design handhelds would learn a thing or two about user interfaces...

73 de KJ6FON

omarali• 13 years ago

I thought they only worked locally. How do you talk to people halfway across the world?

cdjk3• 13 years ago

Handhelds (i.e. VHF/UHF, most likely 144MHz or 440MHz) will only work locally without additional equipment. If you have access to a repeater (which isn't a problem, as most are open) that's linked the internet then you can talk to anyone, either via the internet, or via a repeater (that's also connected to the internet) elsewhere.

HF (1.8 MHz - 30 MHz, in select bands) will propagate around the world if the conditions are right, just like shortwave radio. It's really the same thing, except lower power. That "if the propagation is right" is a big if, however, and also requires a large antenna. I also would not have wanted to set up a portable HF antenna in Boston this afternoon - even if perfectly legal, spreading out wire along the ground and throwing a wire up in a tree doesn't really sound like the best idea right now.

Of course, most of the time it's the HF stuff that's the most fun... and although somewhat reliable, and likely to get you talking to someone, somewhere fairly quickly, it's not going to let you talk to a specific person at a specific time with a lot of reliability, even if you've schedule things in advance.

adestefan5• 13 years ago

You could also use a VHF/UHF handheld with an 18" whip antenna and access the FM repeater on the SO-50 satellites when it's passing by. The RF window for a pass is only about 10 minutes, but then you get some height behind your transmission.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/satellites/sat_summary/so50.p...

fakeer• 13 years ago

I have checked those hand-held hams but they are quite big, aren't they? Or am I missing sth? Can you link to one that is really small enough to carry around and is an actual ham radio - as in works just like any other ham radio would. I am really new to all this. Need some informational push.

I have been thinking about it for a long time but I get stuck on the size. Also I read somewhere that - somehow/maybe - all that can be simulated on PC too with some smaller and additional equipment. Is it?

And, halfway across the world? They are supposed to be high power are they? Besides a conversation halfway across the globe would need some kind of repeater. Questions questions.

jrockway5• 13 years ago

Transceivers need not be large, consider the Baofeng UV-3R/5R or the Yaesu VX-3R. You can put them in your pocket (though I wouldn't transmit with it in there).

You also don't need high-power for long-distance work; the Elecraft KX3 almost fits in your pocket and only puts out 10W (it runs off of 8 AA cells), but many of its users report regular worldwide contacts. (Mine is in the mail, so I'll let you know.) The key is to have a decent antenna.

ezequiel-garzon• 13 years ago

"All you have to do is get 26 out of 35 multiple choice questions correct"

Pardon my ignorance, but what are you referring to? A license? Purchase choices? Thanks!

tjohns• 13 years ago

That would be the test to get an entry level "technician" license.

The question pools are all posted online. If you remember basic physics from college, you can easily cram for the exam in an evening. (And if not, there's plenty of online lessons available to walk you through the material.)

joshu• 13 years ago

What's the $40 radio you recommend?

adestefan5• 13 years ago

Baofeng UV-3R or UV-5R. They aren't the most user friendly radios in the world, but they're cheap and put out decently clean signals. They're actually commercial radios, but they can transmit on the amateur bands. Note that they can also transmit and receive out of those bands, too.

There is no difference other than looks in all the variants that are out there (UV-5RA, UV-5R+, etc.)

jrockway5• 13 years ago

Baofeng UV-5R. It's not a great first radio, but it is cheap.

noarchy• 13 years ago

This may seem overly pedantic (or ideological) to point out, but needing a license at all indicates the need to cater to at least one, major piece of centralization. Otherwise, yes, radio is a technology that still works.

My point may have had more "meat" to it, had the rumours been true that government ordered local cell service to be shut down in Boston. That rumour has since been debunked. But if government can shut down cell service, surely they could order some sort of ham radio shutdown as well? It doesn't mean that it would be easy to enforce, of course.

adestefan5• 13 years ago

No. Point-to-point communications over RF will work (unless they're jamming a very large range of the spectrum, but then there's probably bigger problems.) When you hear about repeaters, they're used to repeat the low-powered handheld VHF/UHF signal (~5W max) to a stronger signal so more people can hear it. Repeaters are controlled and maintained by volunteers and not the government. They don't even allocate fequencies for repeaters. Registering is voluntary and it's controlled by local frequency coordinators who are again just volunteers.

The FCC and the government takes a very hands off approach to Amateur Radio. They'd rather have them be self-patrolled than get involved. the only time the FCC really gets involved is when people transmit out of amateur bands or when someone transmits without a license, but even in those cases it's usually amateurs that initiate the action.

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

> surely they could order some sort of ham radio shutdown as well?

Yes and no, only to the extent that some hams would respect such an order. The practicality of actually preventing someone, especially a ham from broadcasting ^H^H^H communicating via a radio is a dubious prospect.

josh2600• 13 years ago

What a great site. Shoutout to Team Twilio for constantly killing it from a marketing perspective and doing a great job on the humanitarian side as well.

On another note: It is crazy that the authorities can simply disable wireless networks en masse. Just crazy.

hiddenfeatures• 13 years ago

Not so crazy, if you think about the fact that many bombs are remotely-triggered using a cell phone. Kill the network, switch off additional bombs.

fnordfnordfnord2• 13 years ago

>if you think about the fact that many bombs are remotely-triggered using a cell phone. Kill the network, switch off additional bombs.

Okay, I'll see your cell network shutdown with a slight change to the bomb trigger logic. Now it they're triggered if they receive a trigger signal OR if they don't receive ANY signals for some time.

akama• 13 years ago

They didn't in this case, however the idea that they could is disturbing.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-naw-cellph...

aren55555• 13 years ago

Holy crap that burned my retina.

austenallred2• 13 years ago

Classily done. It's difficult to balance the want of marketing and yet not whore yourself out based on popular interest during a tragedy, but this helps a lot of people. Hats off.

oacgnol• 13 years ago

It's not even marketing in my mind but a public obligation. If there is anyone who would be able to provide this service, it's Twilio. Agreed, hats off.

aith• 13 years ago

It's marketing. However, it's awesome to see them spend money to help people directly, rather than on advertising or something like that.

icambron2• 13 years ago

It's marketing, but it's not cynical marketing. It's the kind of marketing that should, in an ideal world, totally work. You prove you're a good, friendly company by doing good, friendly things.

j_juggernaut• 13 years ago

Can't people already use gmail to do so?

alive-or-not• 13 years ago

I use gmail, so everybody else must use it also ...

brianberns• 13 years ago

You can also make free phone calls to anywhere in the USA via Gmail. Look for the "call phone" icon on the left sidebar, above your list of contacts.

koltkorivera• 13 years ago

Thank you for posting this, chrisacky.

austenallred2• 13 years ago

I couldn't resist trying it out from a non-boston IP to a non-Boston number. Still worked. It's cool to see that they trusted people enough to not put any sort of controls on that.

jonny_eh2• 13 years ago

I think it was just easier to not put up limits, hoping that people wouldn't take advantage.

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

A very nice move on Twilio's part. The fact they didn't seem to implement checks of Boston IP's and numbers as well and instead opting to rely on people being truthful is also great. Much respect.

zapdrive2• 13 years ago

>If you're in Boston without phone service, use this website to call your family.

Or, use Gmail to make unlimited domestic calls. Its disturbing that companies are looking to get marketing even out of tragic events like these.

jonny_eh2• 13 years ago

This doesn't require you to sign up for a service.

joelrunyon• 13 years ago

Whenever people say stuff like this, I wast to bring up the idea of the "net good" of the implementation.

Twillio doing this doesn't take away from the tragedy and it's not preying on vulnerable people. It's helping people through their service. If they get press for it, so be it.

It's unfortunate that people think that in order for one party to "win", another party has to "lose." I think this is a good case of win/win.

zapdrive2• 13 years ago

By putting a big logo on the page, they are definitely trying to get some marketing mileage out of it.

nicholassmith• 13 years ago

Which is also promoting the gmail unlimited domestic calls service, driving business to Google.

If you're in Boston without phone service, use this website to call your family

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