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

by chrisacky on 4/16/2013, 12:13 AM with 66 comments
  • by jrockway on 4/16/2013, 1:42 AM

    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!)

  • by josh2600 on 4/16/2013, 1:48 AM

    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.

  • by austenallred on 4/16/2013, 1:57 AM

    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.

  • by sikhnerd on 4/16/2013, 12:45 AM

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

  • by brianberns on 4/16/2013, 2:31 AM

    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.

  • by andyfleming on 4/16/2013, 12:57 AM

    If only the whole screen wasn't bright red!

  • by austenallred on 4/16/2013, 3:25 AM

    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.

  • by DigitalSea on 4/16/2013, 3:32 AM

    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.

  • by j_juggernaut on 4/16/2013, 2:21 AM

    Can't people already use gmail to do so?

  • by geekam on 4/16/2013, 1:14 AM

    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.

  • by zapdrive on 4/16/2013, 3:58 AM

    >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.

  • by brendanobrien on 4/16/2013, 1:06 AM

    Thanks Twillio for a proactive response to a horrible situation.

  • by cbhl on 4/16/2013, 12:43 AM

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

  • by DivisibleByZero on 4/16/2013, 1:08 AM

    Simply amazing.

  • by koltkorivera on 4/16/2013, 3:11 AM

    Thank you for posting this, chrisacky.

  • by aren55555 on 4/16/2013, 1:50 AM

    Holy crap that burned my retina.

  • by nvk on 4/16/2013, 1:36 AM

    +1

  • by unreal37 on 4/16/2013, 12:45 AM

    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?