Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number
phonejanitor.com
phonejanitor.com
For a group of people that see a dozen bootstrap / sandwhich vid style launches a week this stands out, and got me to read 3 paragraphs of ad-copy.
Other notable examples of this launch strategy, intentional or not, in recent memory were Pud launching DistroKid (1) and the team behind Magic (2)
I think in all of these cases the simple, functional approach serves in bringing us closer to the product vs. focusing on the pitch.
(1) https://web.archive.org/web/20130717051607/http://distrokid....
This sounds like a useful service that fits in an area where Google Voice totally dropped the ball and Burner hasn't gone yet.
I wouldn't pay $15/month. I would accept one targeted ad per week? While I won't use this service, I need to know how it works. I have a weekend project?
To me, it's exactly what I want out of a product's website, and I wish more looked like it!
I can easily see why someone would call that terrible; it looks like a time-warp back to the mid-90s when Netscape rendered the default HTML background as grey before everyone eventually standardized on a white background. You actually have to go out of your way to make the logo and menu medium grey on light grey when the same amount of effort could have been put towards a cleaner, more modern, and higher contrast look without changing the utilitarian layout.
I would take a bootstrap style over this. Maybe that's just me.
On the other hand this looks like handwritten HTML so I get the idea that the creators put a little more effort into it. Someone looking to scam or create clickbait content-farms is unlikely to do such a thing, but rather use one of the various site-generators out there instead.
Hey, feature idea - riffing off the now overdue but unlikely to happen call flag for non-human callers, how about a voice-recognised audio-captcha before you're put through during open hours?
This is also why your average big-company automated attendant is so bad at interpreting what you want outside of the 5 common things people want to talk about (most of which I can do online, so it's never what I'm there for) and again sadly only if you're in the more common US American English accent pool. Southern accents tend to get squelched pretty bad and that's just the beginning of accents common in the US.
One could conceivably target an individuals desired accent recognition so you could let the user say "Most of my callers speak in an X accent" and then get a little more accurate for that pool of callers, but this also means installing disparate systems for recognition, each of which are quite expensive computationally.
This is a deeply interesting problem space, though, and if you're interested there's quite a bit of discussion over it in the sphinx project and several research communities.
What I can say is that I can cover costs out of pocket every month indefinitely (because each user covers their telco costs of that line, I'm just covering infrastructure) and my hosting fees are easy to cover even if we have no users.
We're probably not a typical startup in that sense. We have sustainability and independence in mind. At this point the only thing investors could offer us is the ability to grow faster. An important thing, but I like giving stability its own rights, too.
Also self sufficiency and independence are great for a startup, but that doesn't guarantee that your company will continue to exist. Are you setting this up as your main source of income? Does it pay your bills? Will you get bored of it in 6 months? These are all questions that are going through my mind. Your FAQ doesn't answer them. Your terms of service don't address them and literally guarantee nothing: "We do not guarantee any level of service at the time of this writing. This will change when we have a significant track record with which to stand claims against. In practice we meet high standards, but will not be held to those standards." That makes me very hesitant to not only pay you $15 per month but more crucially entrust you with one of the most important ways people contact me.
In the absence of Google Voice, this service might be interesting; however, otherwise, why would I pay 15*12 = 180 USD/year for something that I can already get for free?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/07/0...
Google Fi looks interesting but it appears it will work via your cell phone rather than PC and/or land line (via, for example, Obihai's Obi200 and ObiTalk ... very highly recommended for GV as it is now). And there's Google Fi's price of $30 per month.
Any thoughts on going open source?
It's rough but worked reliably.
Please pardon me for saying so, but it seems like you do care about open source, or at least leveraging it to save your business money.
You are correct that I do care about open source. I don't have much of a care about going open source for our stuff. We make our money on service, not software, but I can see the appeal. Essentially I'm just "meh" about doing it myself here.
It should be noted I love the freeswitch folks and while I'm not involved in writing the C (that takes me back), I hang out in the IRC channel and help there when able. I've looked at the code (it's hard to use binaries with FS), but never had to submit a patch as of yet. They're rock solid and deserve every support contract the get!
Go ClueCon!
[1] asterisk/freeswitch, cloudy telco api, custom software with myriad options for receiving and placing calls.
Why isn't it free? So many things are free!
This is a question we're surprised to get as often as we do. The short answer is we want to run an actual stable business so people know we're profitable and can meet their needs. We don't think someone's phone number is something we would trust to anyone but a business that will be there tomorrow. We also think it's a better relationship if we're trying to sell you a service instead of provide a service to you and sell YOU as the product to advertisers. Not everyone agrees, and that's ok, but it's worked well for us throughout our careers.
We need more of this. Death to Ads!
One consumers may be all "Death to ads!". But the next one might be "Gimme for free! (And I will find a way to block the ads or just live with them)."
In this situation, however, it's not obvious how the service could be supported by ads. This is a robot that works in the background and blocks calls. Whom do you show ads to pay for this? Audio ads to the callers who are rejected?
The whole idea behind this is that the end-user who subscribes to the service is not to be bothered. He or she is not aware that the system is working when it is rejecting calls. If that user has to somehow view ads to have the service, it defeats the point.
"An annoying call was blocked for you! Please view this 30 second ad in compensation!"
LOL!
Perhaps it could work like this: in the free version of the service, unwanted callers must hear an ad before they can get through to you or your voice mail. They are told this. If they listen to the ad, then they do get through.
In the premium version, you pay for the service. Unwanted callers are no longer told that they will have access after the ad plays. (The ad still plays, and they don't have access.)
Also, how about monetizing access to yourself or your mailbox? What if I don't want to reject people, but make them pay to talk to me? "Sorry, reaching ... Kazinator ... during these hours requires a payment of ... two ... dollars ... and ... ninety ... nine .... cents. Please enter your credit card number, followed by a pound sign, or your four-digit speed-pass payment code." :)
Maciej Ceglowski (idlewords) also calls for an "anti-free-software movement" in Don't Be A Free User: https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/
There are better ways to screen out unwanted callers.
As Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera says, "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."
Ad-supported services are quasi-free, in the sense that the the display of ads is not actually eroding any dollars from your financial portfolio. Ads potentially rob you of time. But not necessarily. For instance during a TV commercial, you can take a washroom break or fix yourself a snack.
Not all ad-supported programs are intrusive with the ads. I have a few on my smartphone, and none of them cause delays or very much interference with the operation of the program. They occupy some screen real estate and sometimes can be clicked by accident. (And that's probably a bad thing for the advertisers: an accidental click isn't an indication of true interest; such clicks will not become conversions at any significant rate.)
I honestly don't think you followed my links and read carefully. And you're ignoring the opportunity costs and social costs, also explained in my link.
Indeed, but some great minds of our generation are probably working on figuring out a way to make people do that.
> And you're ignoring the opportunity costs ...
To my credit, I did write: "Ads potentially rob you of time". Reading/viewing/listening to ads isn't free, of course. Your time and attention are a resource.
But opportunity costs are fictional, unless you can show that an actual opportunity is lost. People who have a valuable opportunity to chase generally prove that by chasing that opportunity and not (for example) sitting in front of a TV watching a commercial.
If you're viewing an ad right now, it can safely be assumed that that is currently your best opportunity.
Ads certainly do not coerce you into losing opportunities.
(I will sooner believe that the alleged losses due to copyright infringment are actual!)
It's past 2 p.m. in my timezone and I haven't seen a single ad since I woke up at 6. Didn't watch any TV or listen to a radio. I use AdBlock on my web browser at home and work. Didn't bicycle past any billboards. Amazingly, nobody has tried to sell me anything yet.
Really, it's not that hard to live ad-free. Just block whatever you can, and opt out of the remaining ad-loaded culture.
"Well, say you want something from me, but you don't want to pay the amount I ask for it. Instead, you give a larger amount of money to a third party. The third party gives it to a fourth party, who gives it to me. I try to manipulate you into seeing the third party as more valuable, so you'll give them more money in the future. I do what you want in exchange for you putting up with this."
"Didn't it just cost me a larger amount of money that way? Because of all the intermediaries?"
"Well yes, but everyone just pretends to not know that. Oh, and this is the dominant revenue model for several large industries."
Care to help with the words or the graphic? I'm going to start website for this. If anyone knows of a great website already focused on articulating the problem with ads, let me know. Email me!
His examples and his cause have nothing at all to do with free software. It's an almost comically clumsy misnomer.
When he writes "anti-free-software movement", he is purposefully playing with the ambiguity of the term[1] and playing off the FOSS movement's use of the term. He does so tongue-in-cheek, but for clarity I should not have quoted that part. My mistake.
"Don't Be A Free User" means don't be a user that doesn't pay. He is also specifically speaking of services, not software: "I love free software and could not have built my site without it. But free web services are not like free software."
All of the examples he gives are of services that had no revenue.
That said, I just realized that I made a second mistake. I missed an important detail in his post. He writes at the end, "Make them charge you or show you ads." So obviously he's arguing that you should use services with a revenue-based business model and he is ok if that business model relies on ad revenue. He's only arguing against using services with a non-revenue, buy-out exit strategy. He is not making a "Be the customer, not the product" argument that I thought he was. I'm disappointed that Maciej isn't a part of the no ads movement, at least at the time he is writing this. I will have to talk to him :)
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_(disambiguation)
Tell that to the various for-pay services which have decided to force ads onto paying users because, frankly, it's so fucking convenient that there's already an apparatus which is simply disabled for some people!
They also are offering Robocall Blocking -- a huge win. (3)
(1) https://www.tossabledigits.com/pricing.php
(2) https://www.tossabledigits.com/aboutus.php
(3) https://www.tossabledigits.com/blog/introducing-robocall-blo...
Edit: Oh, it's in the FAQ. I checked all other pages except that one (seemed logical to be under either home or features, or perhaps policies). My bad.
Edit2: Giving the price a second thought, is this a normal fee in the US? Our landline costs just over 4 euros and the cheapest mobile subscription I've been able to find is 3.50 a month.
No, you can get mobile service for $3/month [1] with a minimal number of minutes. I didn't look too hard, its possible even cheaper plans are available.
- Does the voice data pass through Phone Janitor, or is this strictly at the SS7 control level?
- Who's listening in? How do we know?
- What's the service level guarantee?
- Do you have telco levels of redundancy, or is this some 1U server running Asterisk?
- Will this reduce voice quality to low-end VoIP levels? How much latency do you add? How much compression?
- Voice data passes through the POTS lines to our VoIP cluster, eventually getting routed to another call channel or to a recording. Freeswitch is the node of choice here, though we're doing rather simple things with it so eventually we'll probably replace this with something more homegrown. Every vendor along those legs can listen in, just like normal POTS lines. Until people get off the POTS system, this is just going to be reality. Plans and plumbing are in place when viable to make this a strictly end-to-end pass-through fully encrypted service if you're not going over POTS. VoIP is pretty awesome stuff.
- Any vendor servicing the lines can listen in. Unless the NSA has stopped, they're definitely processing some of it. If this is a concern, you really just don't want a phone number at all. I'd love to offer better privacy there, but it isn't in anyone's hands but users' really.
- No SLA for the consumer product yet. We have a track record of no downtime outside our maintenance, but we've only been doing this for a few months so that's easy. That said, everything's modular and I can replace any given piece with a new virtual server in under 10 minutes from start to finish.
- Redundancy in the web portion is there, redundancy in the database is there, redundancy in the VoIP level is sort of there, but if any node along your call chain goes down you're going to lose that call and have to start it again. This is yet another failing of voice communications in general, and not something we can do anything about.
- POTS quality is the best we (or anyone) can do. No compression, just straight uLaw without processing so it's as clear as can be expected from a phone. You can actually see this phenomenon displayed from any cell phone currenty. Call another cell on your same network, you get pretty good quality comparatively. Call another cell on another network and depending on peering you could degrade quite a bit. Call a line connected to any copper telco and you're back at the lowest common denominator. Someday if we can get people off telephone numbers (a haughty goal, unfortunately) we can do quality limited only by your hardware on each end.
Let me know if you have more.
(1) Do you have a store-loyalty program at CVS? Can I use your number when I buy stuff and get your coupons?
(2) Can I re-set your Amazon.com password using live chat with customer support by convincing them that I know your name and phone number and must therefore be you? Or can I at least have some of your recent orders declared missing and re-delivered to my house?
(3) Can I use your phone number in spoof caller ID then call an airline who auto-recognizes the incoming phone number and reveals info about the traveler's flights?
(4) Can I reorder prescriptions or learn about prescription drugs using your name and phone number?
Just some thoughts. Because a personal phone number is often not common knowledge outside of one's friends and acquaintances, third parties sometimes give it unreasonable importance.
How have we ended up in a situation where phone numbers are now used for authentication?
I sincerely hope Phone Janitor can compete in that space, I'd love to see what improvements can be made and what new features may result from the differing perspectives.
I can set it so that Family always gets through. Other groupings can be created and customized, like Friends, Coworkers, Acquaintances, etc. Each can also get their own voicemail greetings.
People not in my contact list will be answered with an automated greeting asking them to announce themselves, which I will hear and then have the option to pick up or send them to voicemail.
There's a feature that lets me dial a number on my phone to record the conversation, which also announces that the conversation is being recorded so as to adhere to various local laws.
Plus there's automatic voicemail transcriptions powered by Google's awesome voice recognition software, which just got a 49% boost in accuracy in an update this week.
I also haven't had to worry about transferring numbers as I switched carriers. I just let the carrier give me whatever number they want, and when people dial my Google Voice number it's automatically forwarded. I can even set it to forward to multiple numbers simultaneously, making it so I can even answer my "cell" using my desk phone at work during work hours.
Again, I sincerely hope Phone Janitor can compete with all that. I think competition has been sorely lacking in that space, and I'm eager to see what improvements it will bring to bear.
I would legitimately like to know if I'm missing that kind of flexibility in GV.
Might be interesting. The "not free" part is a BENEFIT in my mind, and your other post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9943660) tried to address the riskiness.
google is already dropping the ball on google voice.
the app has no updates since android 2.3. just so you understand how behind it is... the app cannot support two messages in the notification. after you get the second message, instead of the usual two lines in the notification as with SMS or any other app, you get the literal text "2 messages".
if you cave in and use hangouts for SMS, you then have to use hangouts dialer... which is a still-born app. for example, if you route your calls to your regular phone AND gtalk (i think the gvoice UI still calls hangout as gtalk) then your phone rings for both things at the same time! and you never know which one you are answering when you swipe right.
1. https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1316844?hl=en you can port your number out of google voice.
2. I highly doubt google voice is going anywhere with Google's commitment to mobile.
3. The voice message app was updated last year. Yes it hasn't got the full treatment, but I assume this is because its primarily a background service. sms is done primarily through your favorite messaging app and phone calls can be made all the time through your gv number or you can choose when making a phone call.
4. You're not forced to use dialer. GV can be set to prompt you to ask you when using dialer or just use your GV number everytime. Your last point makes no sense and is completely false. I have hangouts, google voice and route my number to my phone. Calls come in through the main dialer app.
The FCC doesn't allow phone companies to do that directly. It drives me nuts -- it's always spam callers.
http://www.t-mobile.com/company/privacyresources.aspx?tp=Abt...
> the FCC has mandated that carriers allow callers the ability to block their Caller ID information and thus place “anonymous” calls. T-Mobile is obligated to honor the privacy of the caller in these circumstances. Of course, you may choose not to accept such calls. But we cannot block the call or override the privacy choice of the caller.
Thanks, FCC. Maybe this is a fix? If so, sign me up!
See Section 9, Call Blocking Technology - https://www.fcc.gov/document/tcpa-omnibus-declaratory-ruling...
>The FCC doesn't allow phone companies to do that directly. It drives me nuts -- it's always spam callers.
I think T-mobile is wrong. You can block anonymous/spam calls with my (US) phone provider: https://i.imgur.com/0zCcbpN.png
On a superficial note, the website looks like it was thrown together in minutes, and I think it's actually really refreshing. It honestly grabbed my attention more than a bootstrap site with a full window background image and a snarky tagline overlaid. No cheesy stock photos and disruption talk, just paragraph tags and bullet points. Kudos.
Someday we'll all be allowed to have nice things.
Thanks for the added data point, you are heard loud and clear and we will do our best (we're not designers, we can't be good at everything)
Cheers!
Good luck with your business!
This is precise wording! Sort of refreshing; I can't recall seeing anything like this from my mobile provider.
We do not delete call records actively, and we keep history of where a number has been provisioned. We do this for support and analytics purposes as a matter of good record keeping. This is not likely to change.
You must not have many customers yet if you don't have a schedule for deleting CDRs. Surely this will happen at some point? I guess $15/m pays for some storage... Anyway the moralistic "matter of good record keeping" is a bit of a turn-off. Deleting unnecessary data is a kindness to one's customers.
We can change the wording on that, but there is a requirement for when a number is active or not and who it is attached to, and there's some significant liability if we can't say where a number was supposed to be going at some point in the past. We want to acknowledge that requirement so everybody knows what's happening and why. I understand completely if that's a turn off, but do realize that anyone who has a phone number has such records kept around for several years. My approach is that telco stuff is not something I want to be unprofessional about, and I don't want to hide that either.
Knowing that philosophy, I'm open to suggestions for restating that particular phrase. I suppose it's also worth expanding what "provisioned" means here (specifically it means we put a line on an account with this ID at this time, not a function of identifying WHO owns a number at a time).
You might also note that we don't ask who you are. We don't care. Stripe (payment processor) does, but our system honestly has no idea. If that changes, so will our policies to reflect exactly that, and why.
It's enough that I'd prefer to have a sunset / data retention limit. Somewhere from 3-18 months, preferably on the shorter end of the scale.
I've also been looking for UI / features, haven't found that yet on the site.
Would like to see a screenshot of this app...it looks like you have to sign up and pay to see the interface.
"We charge a simple $15 per line per month. No hidden fees, no hidden limits. Even our Terms are written to be human readable."
If you have a contract, you will then be billed the early termination fee.
This might be more prominently featured as we go forward.
We're not sure of the value add here and it's a lot more work to get happening (and expense of development). If there's user demand we'll obviously do it, but so far feedback has been requests for SMS and MMS support (we're ready when our providers are, which they say should be later this year, or we'll move providers to providers that are).
Nice start.
Now send all those unwanted calls and texts to email and let it handle them. Then you'd really have something there.
This is very much the sort of thing I'd love but:
1. How do I add/remove numbers especially when not at a full desktop, etc?
2. How do I bulk add/remove numbers? Being able to download/upload lists would be a plus.
4. Data retention generally. Both in terms of my being able to export it, and on your retaining data. I really don't need YAN metadata store of my call history. Not for any longer than it takes to transact basic functionality.
Heck, even doing PAYG with the unlocked SIP providers like Anveo and would seemingly provide the same feature set, at a lower price.
HECK, THEY DON'T EVEN SUPPORT SMS! Seriously, they aren't even in the same league as Google Voice or Anveo! Next!
That company already knows far too much about me.
Today, I use Anveo.com for this sort of thing. It also suffers from a relatively stodgy web presence, but the call flow builder, used to route incoming calls, is pretty much a full fledged IVR...really nice. Screenshot here: http://i.imgur.com/54aJqGn.png
It's the one big feature I miss after switching to Ooma. All I want is to direct anyone not in my contacts to voicemail by default, and add exceptions, and I can't do that. :(
The problem with a service like this is that it will block calls from friends and family who are not whitelisted. Not to mention those dreaded emergency calls made by family members using a borrowed phone or public phone.
I've found that asynchronous voice chat programs (WeChat got huge in China, then the West got WhatsApp, Nextel etc) make for much easier voice communication. There's zero overhead of waiting for a ring & voicemail message and a beep -- just press a button & speak.
I'd love to see this integrate with phone lines but I doubt the feasibility.
1) I can easily re-read a couple of words I didn't parse properly the first time, or which are details (like addresses).
2) I can read pretty much anywhere, without disturbing anyone around me.
3) I can read much faster than I can listen.
Thankfully, only a couple of my WeChat friends think sending voice messages is a good idea.
WeChat supports address sharing which integrates to mapping, which works well. It support regular text messages to, and voice calls -- so your options are covered.
My Bank's fraud prevention team try to call me about an unauthorised transaction? Nope.
My doctor calls me on an unlisted line? No.
My daughter's phone runs out of battery and she calls from a friend's phone to say she is going to be late?
I ask a friend to get a friend of theirs to call me about something? No.
Hopeless.
Most phone spammers wouldn't get through.
For grins, _failing_ to press one results in my office speakerphone playing "sad-trombone-sound.wav" -- how I love to hear that sound.
Is it just "we'll run a PBX and backhaul your calls to you over SIP to a client on your phone?" Is it an MVNO? Is it forwarding between PSTN?
When was the last time a janitor told you that Mr. Smith isn't taking any calls right now?
How did they end up with "janitor". I'm looking at thesaurus.com and it doesn't list "janitor" as a synonym for any word that denotes a protector of something.
There is "custodian"; sometimes building janitors are called custodians, but that word has connotations of taking care of something (having it in your custody).
Why? The CEO of PhoneJanitor is no longer reachable by a bunch of people in ways that I find useful. The associated at the VC firm that wants to follow up on funding this company? Denied. The CVS courtesy number reminding him his prescription is ready for pickup? Never gets through. His wife borrows a friends phone after hers dies? Can't even leave a voicemail.
It's one way to deal with spam and cold calls, but there's a real cost to these limits.
The situation of people being overwhelmed by phone access is known and rising.
I can't really answer that exhaustively, as I am not intimately familiar with all of GV. Phone Janitor does have some things I couldn't find in one package elsewhere that I wanted for managing my own stuff (some of which might be doable in GV? I'm not totally sure), and these include:
- Being able to route based on group, contact, time of day, day of week and to any phone number I want all in a single rule
- Linking my voicemails to family and friends without having to go through some authentication stuff I never saw a reason for (there's a story to this one actually, and I'll happily tell it to anyone interested)
- Not having to call anyone to access my voicemails
- Being actively developed on (this space seems rather stagnant to me from big tech. I have some tools options as a developer, but my parents can't really take advantage of any of that)
- Something I can integrate into other things I care about through some sort of API or export format or something (we chose the API route).
- Support. I don't need 24/7 instantaneous phone support (and don't want it, ideally) but somebody in the case of a huge issue should be contactable, fairly easily.
Even Phone Janitor isn't everything I want it to be (yet), but we've found customers find it incredibly useful, and we've had some good feedback for features that others will also find useful but still stick to our core goals (so ads probably won't be supported any time soon). Some of the feedback has been here today as you can see. I'm pleased with the criticism and praise we've received here, and I'm hoping to incorporate some of it into some progress in the near future.
With my setup, inbound business calls get routed to the right person during the day, an automated message if we can't pick up at the moment, and a different message outside of business hours. Outbound calls from our personal numbers get forwarded through the business number our numbers aren't exposed.
It all takes less than 70 lines of Python/Flask.
It's for people who can't write those 70 lines/don't know about Twilio/associate Python with an animal.
I don't understand how it's supposed to be used aside from the API. They say "from the browser", but without examples, it's impossible to tell how much control you have without writing code.
Wear steel-capped boots! Use a hammer! Catch him while he's least expecting it! Our CEO knows that STEEL CRADLE will give him all the protection he needs.