Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

T-Mobile's 'Digits' Program Revamps the Phone Number (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the account-based dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: T-Mobile has announced the launch of its "Digits" program, coming May 31. Digits is a revamp of how T-Mobile phone numbers work, virtualizing customer numbers so they can work across multiple devices. It sounds a lot like Google Voice -- rather than having a phone number tied to a single SIM card or a device, numbers are now account-based, and you can "log in" to your phone number on several devices. T-Mobile says the new phone number system will work "across virtually all connected devices," allowing multiple phones, tablets, and PCs to get texts and calls. This means T-Mobile needs apps across all those platforms, with the press release citing "native seamless integration" in Samsung Android phones, Android and iOS apps, and a browser interface for PCs. The new phone number system is free to all T-Mobile customers. Customers can also buy an extra phone number for $10 or by signing up to the $5-per-month "T-Mobile One Plus" package, which is a bundle of extra features like a mobile hotspot and in-flight Wi-Fi.

51 comments

  1. Tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you use the same identifier across multiple devices, it's easier to track users. Avoid this like the plague.

    1. Re:Tracking by silverkniveshotmail. · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your cell phone carrier was never having any trouble tracking you.

    2. Re:Tracking by sudden.zero · · Score: 1

      Exactly!

    3. Re:Tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Did you know that there are these things called databases, where you can associate multiple rows of data with a single customer. Pretty certain they can put more than on IMEI in for a single customer.

    4. Re:Tracking by guises · · Score: 1

      Well... your cell phone provider knows where you are and who you call, but it doesn't know anything about what you do on your computer or tablet (assuming you're connecting via your home network for those). This does feel more like a feature for attracting customers than a tool for spying, but I'm sure they're collecting information too.

  2. Would rather by markdavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would much rather the effort go into:

    1) Preventing phone number spoofing.

    2) Adding caller ID with name (really, we have had this on land lines for how many decades now?)

    3) Blocking spam callers with full end-user control (like settings for do NOT allow going to voicemail either, white lists, challenge suspected spam calls with voice prompts, etc)

    1. Re:Would rather by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.callcentric.com/features/

    2. Re:Would rather by grahamsz · · Score: 1

      To be fair, TMobile do pretty well at 2 and do a decent job of 3 (though without end user control).

      I'm not sure 1 is within their domain.

    3. Re:Would rather by Mousit · · Score: 3, Informative
      The first one is certainly a widespread problem with the telephone system in general, and yeah they really need to fix that shit.

      2) Adding caller ID with name (really, we have had this on land lines for how many decades now?)

      This is, and has been, available for cellular, right from the start of Caller ID. It simply hasn't been used. I don't know why cell providers didn't default to using the Name, but it was always available for them to do so. Naturally, cellular companies eventually saw a chance at yet another money grab, so for some years now it's been readily available from the big companies (T-Mobile included) as "Caller ID Name" or similar. It is, of course, an optional add-on feature which costs an extra monthly fee, because of course it fucking is.

      3) Blocking spam callers with full end-user control..

      This is already partially available on T-Mobile, called Scam Blocker. It's free. It's only got two options though. Either you receive the call but it is marked in Caller ID (using Caller ID Name!) as "Scam Likely" or your other option is to turn on an outright block, and the scam call never goes through to you at all (not even to voicemail). T-Mobile's documentation about it says the caller does receive a message that they've been blocked. Unfortunately that's all the control you have over this scam/spam blocking feature.

    4. Re:Would rather by markdavis · · Score: 1

      >"This is already partially available on T-Mobile, called Scam Blocker. It's free."

      Cool, thanks for the info. I just turned on that option. Their help stuff doesn't really say much technical info about how it works (is it crowd-sourced, is it centralized, does it include telemarketers and robocallers, etc).

      And I never noticed they had caller ID, probably just ignored it since they want to charge $4 a month. Yeesh. They call it "Name ID"

    5. Re:Would rather by nine-times · · Score: 1

      This may not be the top of my priority list, but I do think it's something that needs to happen. Increasingly, the voice services on cell networks are basically just VoIP running over the data services. The two should be decoupled. You should be able to buy a "dumb pipe" data connection without any other service. You should be able to set the default phone application to use a different VoIP account. In reality, tying phone and messaging services to your cellular data provider no longer makes any more sense than tying your email account to your ISP. Or tying your TV content to your ISP.

      Wired or wireless, ISPs generally want to push you into using their services and content. It gives them power and control. Worse, it's the reason some other VoIP provider can't easily step in and offer you the services you're asking for (e.g. number spoofing prevention, spam blocking). Tying services and content to the ISP decreases competition and kills innovation.

    6. Re:Would rather by Mousit · · Score: 1

      ...their help stuff doesn't really say much technical info about how it works...

      There is this press release which talks a little bit about it. It's a real-time database of known scammer numbers (they say it's a global list, so it's probably something available to industry and not solely their own) compared and maintained through heuristics analysis and other "patent-pending technologies" whatever that means. That's about as detailed as the release gets, but there's at least a little info in it, for whatever that's worth.

      It seems to be focused almost entirely on scam calls. I doubt it's going to block "legitimate" marketers. However, marketers that aren't following FTC regulations would by definition be illegitimate and one would at least hope T-Mobile would class anything not legit and abiding by regulations as scams, especially if those callers are reported. I've no idea though, just hopeful. I can at least say from my own personal experience, once I turned on Scam Block (not just the ID but the full block), illegitimate calls to my number are virtually nil. I still get two, maybe three in a week that sneak through (with all the VoIP out there I didn't expect the block to keep up perfectly), but I used to get four, five, six (sometimes more) every single day, seven days a week. The difference has been tremendous.

      There is some minor crowd-sourcing to the database. T-Mobile has a place to report numbers, both that aren't on the scammer list and should be, and also to report numbers that are being incorrectly identified as scams.

    7. Re:Would rather by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can't do names on caller ID unless you have a phone directory, which doesn't exist for mobile phones.

    8. Re:Would rather by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Verizon has a directory.

      Used to it would display the name on the account when you called someone but a few years ago they made outgoing caller ID opt in and everyone's changed to "WIRELESS CALLER".
      Now if you want people to see your name you have to go online and add the free share name id feature to your account.

      As for receiving caller ID you have to pay even for users that have opted in to the program.

      Also on a lot of devices it's incompatible with VoLTE so you have to pick caller ID or VoLTE

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    9. Re:Would rather by mmdurrant · · Score: 1

      I use Google Voice and get maybe 1-2 nuisance callers a month. I wonder if this is coincidence or if perhaps your number is in numerous marketing databases? I've had the same number since Google Voice was in beta... now you have me wondering.

      --
      I see my shadow changing, stretching up and over me...
    10. Re:Would rather by Sique · · Score: 1

      You should be able to buy a "dumb pipe" data connection without any other service.

      Here around this is called a "data stick". You get a SIM card and an USB stick, which provides an UMTS/LTE-connection to any device you plug the USB stick in. You can also put the SIM-card in whatever other device you want. My company laptop for instance comes with a builtin SIM card, so I can get online as soon as I have UMTS or LTE. If you put the SIM-card in a smartphone, you can install any VoIP app you want to use it.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    11. Re:Would rather by swb · · Score: 1

      What's probably hobbling this somewhat is the handset maker and wireless carrier relationship. The handset maker wants to be available in the carrier market, but the carrier wants the handset to be as exclusive to their service and use as many services as possible.

      FWIW, I think Apple iOS has supposedly been getting better about VoIP apps integrating with the "phone" functionality to allow incoming VoIP calls to be treated by the user interface about the same as native carrier voice calls.

      But it's still not to the point where you have fields for entering SIP accounts in phone preferences and option fields for choosing a default outgoing number or outgoing numbers per call.

    12. Re:Would rather by nine-times · · Score: 1

      My point is more that, you shouldn't need to install special VoIP apps or have additional hardware. It should get to the point where, for example, an iPhone is simply an iPod Touch with a cellular data plan, and nothing else particularly special about it. Verizon and T-Mobile can offer VoIP/messaging services, but they should be sold completely independently of cell phone service, and those services should be portable to any device.

      Tying the products together is simply anti-competitive behavior.

    13. Re:Would rather by nine-times · · Score: 1

      What's probably hobbling this somewhat is the handset maker and wireless carrier relationship.

      I wouldn't say "somewhat". That's one of the big problems here. It's not just that cell phone manufacturers want their products to be available, or that they want their products to be compatible with a given network. They can pretty much do that on their own. The real key is, they want the carriers to actively sell their products. Apple and Samsung want it so, when you go into a Verizon or T-Mobile store (whether it's brick-and-morter or a website), their phones are displayed prominently. They want carriers to put out ads promoting their products. They want the carriers to subsidize their phones so that the advertised price point is $50 instead of the $500 the phone actually costs.

      Another big piece of the puzzle is Net Neutrality. If cellular carriers are allowed to prioritize their own services and charge different rates for data usage for different services, then they can control which services people use. That is, if customers aren't charged for data usage associated with their own (or their partners') voice services and entertainment services, then controlling the physical infrastructure also controls the market for all of those services. That is, unfortunately, what most ISPs want. The $50-$100 a month you pay for Internet access is all well and good, but why settle for that, when they can force you to use their voice service, their version of Spotify and Netflix, etc., all the while collecting data on everything you do? If any company can be the central point that collects all of your data, it makes them pretty powerful in this emerging data-driven world.

    14. Re:Would rather by segin · · Score: 1

      This is bullshit; my cell phone comes up on other people's phones with my name.

      And similarly, their names come up on my phone. Even my ancient VoiceStream Nokia 3390. T-Mobile Name ID feature will push CNAM data to any GSM phone that supports it - even ancient basic phones.

  3. What about flip phones? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this available on flip phones? Didn't seem to be during the beta, and not clear if it is still the same.

  4. Yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Identity stealing and draining bank accounts and fake service subscriptions become extremely easy now. Bad guys just have to guess someone's password or play dumb enough to fool the store people who work on commissions and will overlook identity any day.

    1. Re: Yay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, the phone number becomes useless as you no longer have certainty it is bound to a device

    2. Re: Yay by segin · · Score: 1

      That problem became reality in 1991 when GSM was introduced. GSM MAP protocol runs over SS7, and there's no security on SS7.

  5. So, basically, by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    they've re-invented Cisco's Jabber. Whee.

    1. Re:So, basically, by zm · · Score: 1

      they've re-invented Cisco's Jabber. Whee.

      Or SIP...

      --
      Sig ?
    2. Re:So, basically, by zlives · · Score: 1

      except with the ability to get sms from your bank on any device...

  6. Security compromized by freeze128 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This sounds like a convenience, but it may also have the added benefit of completely ruining two-factor authentication. If an attacker can add his device to your account, and receive texts that are intended for you, then he can use 2FA and really ruin your life!

    1. Re:Security compromized by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a problem with 2FA in general and is why SMS is not recommended, ever, for 2FA.

  7. So now it will be even harder to change providers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I moved to T-Mobile a couple of years ago because they're much cheaper, and AT&T wouldn't release my old number. That was painful since I had had that previous number for over two decades. Then I found-out that T-Mobile doesn't have coverage over much of downtown Seattle so I had to switch yet again. Again, T-Mobile, like AT&T, wouldn't release my old number. I had to change numbers yet again. We need the FCC to enforce number portability. My sister is a lawyer for CenturyLink, and she's said that she has never heard of a phone company fined for their refusal to make their numbers portable. It's sad how after even eight years of Obama's rule, he didn't do a damn thing to fix this problem.

  8. Re:So now it will be even harder to change provide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

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

    We're supposed to have portability, but I can't ever remember hearing about someone that successfully fought to keep their phone number after changing cell providers. My son works at an AT&T store, and he said they fight like hell to not port numbers because it helps keep customers. Of course, the other cell providers do the same back since AT&T does that to them. It's a feedback loop.

    Personally, it sucked losing my Sprint number I had had since 1993 when I switched to my son's plan to use his employee discount. For $35 less per month, it was worth it, but it was still a pain.

  9. 2fa? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So how will this affect 2fa? That one-to-one relationship of 1 sim 1 number is how it all works. Ah yes leave it to T-Mobile, the company that lost a man millions in Bitcoin by allowing a hacker to take over the phone number just because he had the SSN.

    This is a terrible idea.

    1. Re:2fa? by segin · · Score: 1

      SMS for 2FA is a terrible idea, and anyone that uses it deserves to be hacked, or have their customers hacked.

  10. EVERY customer? I'll believe it when I see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    T-Mobile often says that but the reality is that it's only for people on the main subscriber plan(s). If you're on a pre-paid or grandfathered plan then you don't get any soup.

  11. Redundant for Apple-only users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wondered how this is any different from Apple's Continuity feature, which allows phone calls (among other things) to be shared among all of a user's Apple devices, regardless of carrier. Turns out it isn't. Straight from the horse's mouth:

    My mobile phone number already works on all my Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac). How is this different?

    Continuity is restricted to the iOS ecosystem. DIGITS allows calls and texts to work on any device in which you have enabled your DIGITS lines, regardless of the operating system. If you use Apple devices exclusively, then there’s no need to use the DIGITS app.

    Still, useful if you're not dumb enough to put all your eggs in one (apple) basket.

    1. Re: Redundant for Apple-only users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It reminds me of a early 1990s telephone feature that never caught on where one number would roll through, behind the scenes, to all your numbers. Worked well, but wasn't popular.

  12. Too p3rv3 for most people by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    We said stop tracking us.

    And we meant it.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Too p3rv3 for most people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      STFU

  13. Re:So now it will be even harder to change provide by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    We're supposed to have portability, but I can't ever remember hearing about someone that successfully fought to keep their phone number after changing cell providers.

    My current cell phone number started on Verizon, went to T-Mobile around 2003, was ported to AT&T when we switched around 2006, and then went back to T-Mobile when we switched back in 2013.

    The only one who was problematic was AT&T - they required that I know my account number which was different than the number used in billing, and could not be looked up! Eventually I tracked down some special phone number... I had to call and answer a bunch of questions, and at the end the dude told me my apparently secret account number.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  14. Re:About God's "Chosen People" by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 1

    So, I was wondering, if God's chosen people are the Jews, what exactly did he choose them for?

    He chose them to chastise the buffoons who refuse to stay on topic.

  15. A great new innovation! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As an Apple users whose had this ability through iCloud for years it's nice to see others catching up.

  16. I don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... "log in" to your phone number on several devices ...

    Do all devices ring until one is answered (like parallel extensions), or does one have to set a preferred device (like call-forwarding)?

    Also, is there a IMAP-style server so that address books, SMS/chat history and phone logs are synchronized?

    1. Re:I don't know by segin · · Score: 1

      As a DIGITS beta participant, allow me to answer those questions:

      • 1. All lines ring in parallel, until the one device answers (or rejects) the call, which answers (or rejects) the call for all devices. This is for both the DIGITS app, as well as any SIMs attached to the line (DIGITS offers an optional duplicate SIM for $10/mo for each line, which allows you to use two different phones.)
      • 2. DIGITS will allow you to sync your phone contacts to the DIGITS service, using the smartphone app. You'll have to manage contacts manually otherwise, but the same DIGITS contacts list appears on all DIGITS apps. SMS and call logs are synchronized, even regular voice and SMS done with your main SIM, or even the DIGITS duplicate SIM.
  17. Re:So now it will be even harder to change provide by TemporalBeing · · Score: 1

    I moved to T-Mobile a couple of years ago because they're much cheaper, and AT&T wouldn't release my old number. That was painful since I had had that previous number for over two decades. Then I found-out that T-Mobile doesn't have coverage over much of downtown Seattle so I had to switch yet again. Again, T-Mobile, like AT&T, wouldn't release my old number. I had to change numbers yet again. We need the FCC to enforce number portability. My sister is a lawyer for CenturyLink, and she's said that she has never heard of a phone company fined for their refusal to make their numbers portable. It's sad how after even eight years of Obama's rule, he didn't do a damn thing to fix this problem.

    Switched to T-Mobile back in 2013; no issue with having AT&T relinquish the number to them. Had the same number since 2004.

    --
    Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
  18. Re:So now it will be even harder to change provide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This. I have an old wide area number that worked in the entire eastern half of WA so I didn't want to lose it, but AT&T refused to port that number to T-Mobile. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place since moving to T-Mobile will save me $43 per month($516 per year!). The downside is that my new T-Mobile number will be a long distance call for most of my customers. I don't know what to do at this point. I'm paying for both AT&T on my old iPhone and T-Mobile on my new one. Carrying two phones and charging two phones sucks.

  19. Just like Ooma by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like Ooma, Google Voice and other similar services. Nothing new here!

  20. Re:So now it will be even harder to change provide by tippen · · Score: 1

    I moved 5 lines from AT&T to T-Mobile last year and zero problems with porting the lines over.

  21. This is not new: Tmobiles feature set is OLD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A company I work for has been offering this entire feature set to customers for years; I have multiple numbers - including a toll-free number - that rings to the same cell phone and its a lot cheaper than TMobile ever could be.