Bell's Mind

If you don’t know who decoder is then this article is probably not for you. However if you remember all the press he received in 2004 this may show you just how much the media can twist things in unconventional ways. Usually they twist things to make things more sensational but this time it looks like things got twisted due to a translation from English to Japanese and then back again. The content below is amusing while the situation at hand is definitely not.

First, take a look at a post by rEph linking to the original story:















Then, the haiku version by Tokachu (just reformatted):




























And finally the updated article that is still on their site as of today. Note that they removed the “Free-King specialty” and replaced with other absurd translational mishaps:

UPDATE #1: This is an old post and it's a bit outdated. Go directly to the NPA-NXX search.

I’ve been toying around with GWT a little more lately and I was trying to think of what kind of AJAXy stuff I could add to the site that might interest other phone phreaks. My first attempt is the NPA-NXX search watching widget. You’ll see this on the NPA-NXX search page hovering in the right hand corner. It’ll show you at a glance what searches other people have performed. It looks like this:



This is first screen capture of it after it was put onto the production site.

Let me know if the feature is interesting and what other features you’d like to see.

On Sunday, December 9th, 2007 I was rummaging through the Bell’s Mind configuration files removing some cruft from the system when I realized that the default iax.conf I had was using the option bandwidth=low. For phone people this is horribly unacceptable. I have since remedied the problem and changed it to bandwidth=high. Everyone should be running on uLaw now instead of GSM or, even worse, ILBC.

Sorry for the mixup! Give the conferences another try since the codec update and see how much better they sound.

After months of being away from the site I’ve been working behind the scenes to get everything up and running again as it once was. I just tried doing an update to my telco database from NANPA and to my dismay the code no longer worked. After a bit of digging I found out that it wasn’t my code but it was a change that NANPA made that most of you will never believe. Telcodata.us reported about this on October 28th, 2007 so forgive me for missing the boat in my absence.

NANPA has removed all CLLI data from their site in the name of anti-terrorism. Yes, they actually believe that CLLI codes somehow promote, instill, or somehow otherwise assist terrorism. This is a quote from their official document regarding the removal of CLLIs [Google HTML]:

“The availability of this information in a public domain makes telecommunications networks vulnerable to attacks as the location of Switch CLLIs that provide service for sensitive communications and financial transactions is easily obtained and can be used as targets for a possible terrorist attack”

So now we’re at a turning point with regard to CLLIs on the site. Do we keep them until they are so old that they’re useless? Do we remove them now? Can we find another source of this data? Will we be approached by DHS and told to remove the data? E-mail me with your suggestions.

I can admit when I’m wrong. About two weeks ago I posted how excited I was about the Android platform and then promptly retracted my statements saying that Verizon would never adopt it.

Today I am gladly eating my words as Verizon has announced that they are embracing the Android platform for their open access push. Normally I’d still be skeptical but in a rare outbreak of positivity when it comes to the US EVDO network I have changed my tune. Some important quotes that lead me to believe that this is for real are:

“By contrast, Verizon Wireless has created the most profitable U.S. cellular business by tightly restricting the devices and applications allowed to run on its network. But over the past year, the company's leadership came to conclude that it was time for a radical shift. Such a move, they reckoned, might help Verizon Wireless keep growing while holding down costs.” -- This is a no brainer. What evidence do they have that an open platform would’ve hurt their profit margins? Maybe they just heard of Europe...

“This allows them to add customers onto their network without having to spend as much to get them” -- Yes, they won’t have people like me asking why a feature that the manufacturer added was turned off (like syncing contacts over Bluetooth, etc.)

“Small companies have a hard time affording the development” -- I can attest to that. Try launching any Java application as an independent developer on Verizon’s network now. Better yet, just try getting access to a device that doesn’t have a completely locked down Java environment for testing.

“Google is hoping the large, open scale of its Android platform will remove that hurdle, slashing development costs. So does McAdam, who expects a flowering of tens of thousands of applications.” -- Yes, thousands of applications that will make people want to use their phone and sign up for data plans... oh, and you can flatly refuse to support it and pass them on to someone else if something goes wrong therefore slashing your technical support costs.

“Five years from now the industry will be open like us, I think we could be at an inflection point.” -- I sure hope so. It’s funny to think that phone companies could some day strive to be as open as Verizon. :)

“Though the company will insist on testing all phones developed to run on its network in the open-access program, Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices.” -- This is the big one. If Verizon isn’t lying then they’re really going to just make sure the CDMA/EVDO chipsets work, that customers can make calls, and that they can send data packets from their phones. Everything else is on them. This is really what I needed to hear to believe it.

So, do you believe it? Either way, let me know what you think!

I’m in the process of doing a lot of code cleanup and the NPA and NPA/NXX search are offline temporarily. I’ll post again when they’re back up.

The searches have been fixed. I’ll be doing a lot of changes over the next few days so let me know if anything else breaks.