Tag: calls

How easy is working from home if you don’t have an IT guy?

With a growing emphasis on working from home at the moment, there’s an obvious concern that many just simply can’t do that. As an example, if you work in a supermarket, a coffee shop or a pub; working from home just isn’t really possible. For big IT firms, …

Over a half of Brits getting disturbed at night by cold-calls

Having trouble sleeping? Well, I’ve recently had a few calls at night. It does tend to make you jump out of your skin at first. A call, in the middle of the night, is usually a sign that something is wrong – perhaps a member of the family …

How to dodge those 0870 / 0844 charges and get straight through

If you need to get hold of a utility provider, government agency, airline, insurance company or any other large organisation, there’s always a few concerns. Firstly, finding the right number itself can be tricky. You might call their main line, but then when you get through, they might …

Scammers. Why fighting them isn’t exactly straightforward.

This morning I received a call from 0207 1754592. As I usually do with calls, I tend to screen unknown numbers. On my voicemail, this message was left. It’s been fired through a text-to-speech system and you can listen to it here… It’s a horrible scam. There’s a …

Easy Logger – A hidden mobile tracking app

There’s plenty of monitoring apps out there but, if you want to pay absolutely nothing, the new Easy Logger app might be of interest. It’s for Android and you will need to side-load an APK, but for precisely nothing per month you’ll get full logging of all phone …

On EE? Having problems today? You’re not the only one

We first heard of EE voice call problems this morning, but problems still seem to exist late into the afternoon, with customers unable to make our receive calls to other networks. EE have told us that.. Some of our customers are reporting problems when trying to make calls …

Register and check callers via the Telephone Preference Service

A lot of smartphones now come equipped with a blocking system to let you stop unwanted calls from repeatedly bothering you. On the HTC U11 I’m testing now, you can see that in action below.. However, in the UK we have something called the “Telephone Preference Service”, or …

Three UK are the only network to hold roaming prices post-Brexit

Can our hung parliament and chaotic government really “take back control” from the EU? Who knows, but it does raise an interesting question. What will happen with our newly-acquired EU roaming deal? After Brexit, if we ever get it sorted out, will Brits see a return to the …

Going on holiday? Yes, USE your phone!

Today is June 15th 2017. This article, though, will be ignored by many. For reasons I can’t quite understand, it’s difficult to get clear and concise information across to some. I noticed this at the airport recently. We’d just landing at BHX (Birmingham Airport) and, despite standing next …

Cutting the cord. Trying to kill off my landline.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m a penny pincher at times. If there’s a cheaper way of doing something, even if it’s a bit geeky, I’ll give it a go. Stick with me on this one, because it involves something that Virgin have just announced which I think is a …

Vodafone block 100 million nuisance calls in 6 months

These days it is hard to get away from them – those pesky calls that come in about PPI, claiming for an injury you never had in the first place, offering you services you didn’t ask for etc… There are a wide range of apps you can install …

Create your own free conference calls

Conference calls. They fill me with dread if I’m honest. Usually you’ll end up accidentally talking over someone during the call, then they’ll stop talking just as you stop talking, then you’ll both apologise, then you’ll both start talking again. Then you’ll get someone going on about “blue …

Nuisance callers on your home phone? Give this thing a try

Apparently I had a car accident a couple of years ago and £3000 has already been put aside for me. “That’s pretty good..”, I replied as the cold-caller waited for my response, “..especially when you’re obviously making all this up and I’ve not had an accident for over …

EE trial phone calls over WiFi and 4G

We’ve seen calls being made over WiFi before and indeed Orange (as they were then) are perhaps the most memorable for their Signal Boost technology. It worked well, but if you received a call whilst on WiFi and moved out of range, the call would just drop as …

Ovivo shuts down

Ovivo Mobile, the MVNO that offered free minutes, calls, and data for absolutely nothing per month, appears to have closed its doors in the past couple of hours. In a statement posted on its website, the company said: Dear OVIVO Customers, We are very sad to announce that …

GiffGaff experience second failure in less than a week

Got GiffGaff? Got cheap data? Well, unfortunately that’s all you have as I type. The 2G side of the network seems to have failed, with calls failing to connect and text messages popping up with a failure message since around 4PM today. The GiffGaff Twitter guys have already …

This Call May Be Recorded

For training purposes or just to be generally nosey….. Here at Coolsmartphone we’ve been contacted by copluk. They wanted us to review their call recording app – “Free Call Recorder – ACR“. It is available for free from the Play Store, then you have the option to pay …

BT want to help block those unwanted calls

Picture the scene, you’re sat at the dinner table just about to tuck in to that delicious roast and the phone rings! The display reads ‘International’ or ‘Withheld’, great… Yep we all get them and we all feel the same way, what a nuisance. Well BT have come to …

Orange bundle mobile calls into their landline deals

So, you know how it is. You’ve got one of those home phone and broadband packages but, when you call a mobile phone, it’s not included in the deal. Somehow, every month, you go way beyond the “headline figure” that got you hooked into the deal in the …

O2 to launch calls over WiFi too

O2 are trialling a new VoIP service that will let customers use text and voice services over standard WiFi networks. Named “O2 Connect” it’s currently in testing but will shortly be available on iOS and Android smartphones. We assume that this will be similar to the Orange Signal …