26 ms·

Then you'll pay for all the phone calls from marketers. Thanks but no thanks

by ozfive 9y ago

DamnYuppie 9y ago
To solve said problem don't give the # out. Burner phones are for you to use and dispose of, not keep and use as a primary daily phone.
- holtalanm 9y ago
  isn't the purpose of a burner phone....to give the # out?
  - ozfive 9y ago
    That is what this tutorial is advocating. Don't get me wrong this is a great project to explore kotlin and twilio. But ultimately a very expensive one if your number gets sold to a lot of other companies.
- problems 9y ago
  Interesting, unless I'm missing something Twilio's pricing does not include any unlimited incoming model. From other VoIP providers, you can get that pretty easily. I use voip.ms and they charge $4.25/mo for a number and unlimited incoming.
  - Nexxxeh 9y ago
    There isn't an unlimited package to normal users afaik. But calls are cheap. If you only want a number for a month, thats $1. Leaving $3.25 worth of calls at $0.05 (0.01 incoming, 0.04 back out to your cell) a minute forwarded to a mobile to match. Over an hour of calls, which I wouldn't hit on a gumtree advert. That $4.25 presumably doesn't include the outbound leg, does it? Twilio also do SIP registration, so you can route calls to your handset via SIP even more cheaply. (0.004 for outbound, so 0.01 and 0.004, for over 3.5 hours for that $3.25. There are definitely usage cases for unlimited, but I don't think this is necessarily one of them unless you have a ridiculously high call volume. At that stage, I'd just use the voicemail to email Twimlet and bounce everyone into that.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - problems 9y ago
      So, for per-minute SIP calls: Twilio - 0.0125 in 0.017 out voip.ms - 0.09 in 0.005 out Of course, the unlimited plan is only useful for a select few - if you want to plug it into your PBX and use it as a small support line (could be this case) or if you're making nightly calls for a few hours to relatives or a significant other, it's quite possibly worth it. Depends what you're going to use it for and if you want that Twilio API really. If you just want a SIP number, it's pretty clear, but if you want all those nice API features and don't need super high volume, Twilio is probably the way to go.
      - Nexxxeh 9y ago
        Yeah. Although there's something to be said for Twilio for straight up SIP too if you've got awkward fucking hardware. The Gigaset N300 is great, but the dialplan options are embarrassingly limited. Twilio offer their own hosted Node.js (Twilio Functions - BETA) and TwiML Bins (free super-basic TwiML hosting with basic moustache templates for simple variable insertion.) Pretty sure the whole project in the OP could have been done quicker and easier using Twilio Functions, but I get that it's more of a learning tutorial and example. I use a combination of TwiML Bins, Functions and Twimlets to quickly chain together powerful functionality. And to work around the N300 dialplan limitations! Edit: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/230878368-How-to-use-templates-with-TwiML-Bins https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/230878368-How-t... https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007737928-Building-apps-with-Twilio-Functions https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007737928-Bu... https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets
gregorymichael 9y ago
Greg from Twilio here. Totally understand the concern there, especially since you're already paying for your cellphone. I did something similar a couple years ago when we were shopping for a car. A lot of car shopping sites are basically lead generators for dealerships and you need to provide a number to get real info. I used a Twilio number forwarded to my cellphone. The deluge of calls started immediately. After 48 hours, when we had all the information we needed, I released the Twilio number and incurred no further charges. Total cost was $1 (per month) for the phone number and $0.01 per minute for the inbound calls. Upside was that my phone stopped ringing the moment I was done talking to salesmen.
- ozfive 9y ago
  So what you're saying is this tutorial was written by a twilio sales/marketing employee?
  - mattnewton 9y ago
    ..it's own twilio.com, so isnt it transparently promoting twilio? Or is your comment about sales versus engineers? If their salespeople know how to fire up a little endpoint in kotlin using their API that's fantastic.
  - jk563 9y ago
    Marcos Placona is a Developer Evangelist.
    - ozfive 9y ago
      I missed that this was on twilio. Fair enough
  - gknoy 9y ago
    It's on the Twilio.com blog, so I think that it is pretty reasonable to assume that it's written by a Twilio employee. :-)
    - 9y ago

Then you'll pay for all the phone calls from marketers. Thanks but no thanks

by ozfive 9y ago

Then you'll pay for all the phone calls from marketers. Thanks but no thanks

To solve said problem don't give the # out. Burner phones are for you to use and dispose of, not keep and use as a primary daily phone.

holtalanm 9y ago
isn't the purpose of a burner phone....to give the # out?
- ozfive 9y ago
  That is what this tutorial is advocating. Don't get me wrong this is a great project to explore kotlin and twilio. But ultimately a very expensive one if your number gets sold to a lot of other companies.
problems 9y ago
Interesting, unless I'm missing something Twilio's pricing does not include any unlimited incoming model. From other VoIP providers, you can get that pretty easily. I use voip.ms and they charge $4.25/mo for a number and unlimited incoming.
- Nexxxeh 9y ago
  There isn't an unlimited package to normal users afaik. But calls are cheap. If you only want a number for a month, thats $1. Leaving $3.25 worth of calls at $0.05 (0.01 incoming, 0.04 back out to your cell) a minute forwarded to a mobile to match. Over an hour of calls, which I wouldn't hit on a gumtree advert. That $4.25 presumably doesn't include the outbound leg, does it? Twilio also do SIP registration, so you can route calls to your handset via SIP even more cheaply. (0.004 for outbound, so 0.01 and 0.004, for over 3.5 hours for that $3.25. There are definitely usage cases for unlimited, but I don't think this is necessarily one of them unless you have a ridiculously high call volume. At that stage, I'd just use the voicemail to email Twimlet and bounce everyone into that.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - problems 9y ago
    So, for per-minute SIP calls: Twilio - 0.0125 in 0.017 out voip.ms - 0.09 in 0.005 out Of course, the unlimited plan is only useful for a select few - if you want to plug it into your PBX and use it as a small support line (could be this case) or if you're making nightly calls for a few hours to relatives or a significant other, it's quite possibly worth it. Depends what you're going to use it for and if you want that Twilio API really. If you just want a SIP number, it's pretty clear, but if you want all those nice API features and don't need super high volume, Twilio is probably the way to go.
    - Nexxxeh 9y ago
      Yeah. Although there's something to be said for Twilio for straight up SIP too if you've got awkward fucking hardware. The Gigaset N300 is great, but the dialplan options are embarrassingly limited. Twilio offer their own hosted Node.js (Twilio Functions - BETA) and TwiML Bins (free super-basic TwiML hosting with basic moustache templates for simple variable insertion.) Pretty sure the whole project in the OP could have been done quicker and easier using Twilio Functions, but I get that it's more of a learning tutorial and example. I use a combination of TwiML Bins, Functions and Twimlets to quickly chain together powerful functionality. And to work around the N300 dialplan limitations! Edit: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/230878368-How-to-use-templates-with-TwiML-Bins https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/230878368-How-t... https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007737928-Building-apps-with-Twilio-Functions https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/115007737928-Bu... https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets

gregorymichael 9y ago

Greg from Twilio here. Totally understand the concern there, especially since you're already paying for your cellphone. I did something similar a couple years ago when we were shopping for a car. A lot of car shopping sites are basically lead generators for dealerships and you need to provide a number to get real info. I used a Twilio number forwarded to my cellphone. The deluge of calls started immediately. After 48 hours, when we had all the information we needed, I released the Twilio number and incurred no further charges. Total cost was $1 (per month) for the phone number and $0.01 per minute for the inbound calls. Upside was that my phone stopped ringing the moment I was done talking to salesmen.

ozfive 9y ago
So what you're saying is this tutorial was written by a twilio sales/marketing employee?
- mattnewton 9y ago
  ..it's own twilio.com, so isnt it transparently promoting twilio? Or is your comment about sales versus engineers? If their salespeople know how to fire up a little endpoint in kotlin using their API that's fantastic.
- jk563 9y ago
  Marcos Placona is a Developer Evangelist.
  - ozfive 9y ago
    I missed that this was on twilio. Fair enough
- gknoy 9y ago
  It's on the Twilio.com blog, so I think that it is pretty reasonable to assume that it's written by a Twilio employee. :-)
  - 9y ago