My cell phone is no longer my friend. Not that we’ve had an argument and fallen out. Or even for that matter that we were particularly intimate in the first place. It’s just lost its place in my affection as a result of not caring for me enough.
About half a dozen times in the last week I’ve received a call out of the blue with the caller ID of “unknown”. Each time, silence at the other end. And each time the caller drops the call the moment I speak.
A rogue telemarketer system? A war-dialing trojan PC? Who knows.
So, I called my cell phone company’s customer service. I won’t name them, because I suspect they’re all equally useless, and it is unfair to pick on one. The only two options they give me are to change my number or report the incidents to the police. No ability to trace the caller, block the caller, or even screen out calls without a caller ID. I’m at their mercy, and they don’t have any mercy in stock.
I hate it so much. The powerlessness of the whole situation. It’s my phone dammit, and I should control who can call me.
So the PSTN deserves to die (with prejudice) for having such a feeble identity system built into it.
Next my cell phone network operator deserves a swift blow to the temples for not doing anything to make the situation better, including simple features that could easily be incorporated in their switching network.
Then my phone manufacturer should be sent to the gallows for not including features to handle inbound calls without a caller ID. My network edge is dumb, not smart. Bad choice.
And finally the bastard who keeps calling me needs to be sent through the gates of Hades for an extended vacation. Curses to all of you!
Posted by Martin Geddes at 09:06 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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One must assume these calls are happening when you are asleep - hence your irritation. :-)
Might one enquire, as to how much you would pay for a solution? And does one's cell phone network opertaor care to listen to you as a consumer and act accordingly?
The real question here: How intimate are carriers with their consumers? How well do they truly understand the marketplace? Or are their marketing people just overpaid and overly pretty MBAs pretending to be 17 again in the hope they can "win the youth market"?
Posted by: at February 29, 2004 01:40 AM(Cell phones are kind of lame. Have you seen the coming problem with battery power not keeping up with all of the features that they are trying to cram into smaller and smaller phones?)
Anyway - How is it the fault of the POTS/PSTN system (which incidentally can be traced, blocked, and screened) that your cell phone, which runs on an entirely different network, has no such services?
Posted by: at March 3, 2004 07:46 AMThe wireless phone system is a sustaining innovation in the distribution of the POTS/PSTN system. The PSTN does not place the traceability or management of call acceptance in the hands of the end user. It is antiethical to end-to-end. Cell phones run on a different physical network, not a different logical network.
Posted by: at March 3, 2004 10:37 AMI love it when reality backs me up in an argument. Robin has frequently (i.e. twice) lectured in my presence about the way that current phone number systems prevent calls like this to some extent (Ok, they don't prevent it, but you are supposed to have some comeback because the numbers can be traced, whereas some random bod phoning you up on Skype can do it fairly anonymously if you allow people not on your friends list to call you). My take is that the number system is a bit rubbish, and instead of VOIP/IM being more like phones, phones should be more like VOIP/IM - you should be able to specify a friends list of people that can call your mobile (there are refinements to this, of course - the friends list might only operate out of hours, and you could have one-shot tokens that can be handed out by your friend's phones to their friends which would allow people not on your friends list to call you - effectively you'd allow your friends list to vouch for other callers).
I've had the same annoying blank calls recently on our home line, incidentally.
Posted by: at March 11, 2004 05:01 AM