Cell phone for dummies question.

[Jim Mahan]

I'm not going to get the book. I feel like I should already know this. When I receive a call my phone reports the location of the caller. If the caller is outside their home cell territory, like someone from Phoenix calling from Mystic, is my phone going to report that the call came from Phoenix or Mystic? (Not that anyone from either place is actually going to call me. I'm thinking more of phishing spam.)

I am on my third or fourth day of being positive for covid, it feels like the usual common head cold with body aches. The good thing is that the vaccine and boosters have made it be only this bad, rather than my needing to be hospitalized and intubated, which was what I what I was afraid of, because I'm old and have emphysema. I only bring that up because maybe I've got the brain fog, too, along with the fatigue.

We're also having a nearly two week long heat wave of triple digit highs, breaking a local record for consecutive days over a hundred set in the eighties, keeps me inside and not progressing on my projects, and maybe a bit lethargic. I hardly have the energy to curmudgeon.

[WI-Tom]

Jim,

I'm glad your Covid is relatively mild so far. I managed to avoid doctors and hospitals with mine, but had a high fever (104.8 at one point) and vomiting for 4 days. And a week+ of exhaustion. Not too fun.

I have no idea about the cell phone question, so maybe I still have brain fog too!

Tom

[CK 17]

I think the call location will show based on the area code, not necessarily the actual phone location. I only say this because when I was phone banking using my cell phone the fine voters of Wisconsin would often ask me about the weather in NH.

[StevenBauer]

I think it shows the location the phone was originally purchased and activated. Some of my clients have lived here for years but their calls show with out of state locations.

[Jim Mahan]

Tks

[Uncle Duke]

I spent some years doing software for a VOIP ("voice over Internet") phone provider and it is indeed possible for unsavory actors to "spoof" both the source location of the call and the caller's name.
Having said that:

Caller ID spoofing is generally legal in the United States unless done "with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value". The relevant federal statute, the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, does make exceptions for certain law-enforcement purposes. Callers are also still allowed to preserve their anonymity by choosing to block all outgoing caller ID information on their phone lines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing

[JimD]

It'll likely show the number, including area code, programmed into the calling phone. For example, my number is 250-***-**** and that is what will show up on your caller ID no matter where I am when I call you.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Another cellphone for dummies question:

An exchange of emails with a large and respected boatyard and marina:

Dear Deborah,


A Voicemail message from you, timed rather improbably at 23.31 last night, just popped up on my phone, asking me to call you. Given the un-Godly hour that this voicemail was timed at, I’m going to assume that you left it some days ago to chase me up on my then outstanding bill and it was hung up by some sort of system glitch. I have just changed to a new iphone so that might be it.


If, on the other hand my boat has just done something dreadful, she’s insured with Pantaenius and do call me back!


All the best,


Andrew.

Hi Andrew

All OK, I certainly wasn’t working at 23.31 last night and yes it was last week, payment all received with thanks

How does this happen?

[Breakaway]

I have a company phone. Sometimes I appear as " ABCD Corp" on people's caller ID. At other times, my number and home town appear. Have never figured out a pattern to this. It seems random.

If someone has saved my number as a contact, I then appear as whatever name that person saved me as on that phone.


Kevin