MTSC is Maintenance Technical Support Center. The USPS operates this utility so that Maintenance personnel can report problems that we encounter with the machinery we’re supposed to be keeping operational.
When you call the number, you get put into an automated phone labyrinth which is ostensibly designed to allow the system to direct the support request to an available tech who can best address your problem. The labyrinth begins by having the caller enter an employee ID, from which the system is able to determine the employee’s name and facility. Apparently, it’s prepared to wait indefinitely for this first response.
Last night, I arrived home from work at about 11pm. kaylasmom was fast asleep with our cordless (landline) phone beside her, and the handset OFF. On the nightstand next to the bed, our Echo was repeatedly reciting the spiel from MTSC’s labyrinth, where it would ask the caller to enter an employee ID number, interspersed with advisory announcements on how the caller could accomplish these things online (which truth to tell, is why I never make my first call on a problem to this number).
WTF?
Some information that may clarify the issue: I do have the number for the MTSC Help desk in the contacts in my cell phone (which was in my possession while I was at work).
Also, before I left for work, I had been asking Alexa to give me information on how to set the Echo up to make and receive phone calls through the landline. My efforts remained fruitless, so I had given up.
Why (and HOW) did the Echo initiate this connection?
Someone (maybe someone on the TV) could have said “Alexa, call Auntie Essie” or something like that and this was the closest match Alexa found in your phone book.
OK. I don’t know how Alexa bypassed the employee ID prompt. Maybe there is an escape route that you don’t know about.
But even if my Alzheimer’s-stricken wife DID utter those sounds, my Echo is simply not set up to initiate or even participate in telephone communications.
And Alexa didn’t bypass the prompt for an employee ID. The MTSC Minotaur-bot was simply yammering away with alternatives to entering one.
My mobile phone may be supported, but there is no way it was within range of my Echo when the call was initiated. And even if it was initiated while I was parking my car, should my phone’s call log not reflect that the call was placed?
And TTBOMK, my mobile phone has not been sync’d to my Echo.
I’ve been wondering the same kind of question. Everything I read seems designed to make it easy for a naive user, rather than an explanation of how the technology actually works. The explanations of ‘how it works’ are hopelessly simplistic and obviously incomplete.
One of the reasons for syncing with your mobile phone is to get your contact list. But Echo can dial phone numbers without a contact list, and it has other ways of working out who your contacts are.
I would guess that at some point you gave permission to Amazon to upload your contacts to them.
After that, it’s game over - the Echo has access to all your contacts.
Try it - turn your phone off, and as it to call some obscure person in your contacts.
Is MTSC using or testing AWS services? Echo devices can talk to other Echo devices without making a telephone call. If MTSC has set up an AWS end point and identified a list of employees, that might be a path.
Also, the AI that powers Amazon and Google devices makes systematic errors that are different than a human being would. It is trained to not mix up “Bill” and “Fred”, and to not mistake your conversation for instructions. But it’s trained mostly on speech. It’s more likely to hear commands from random noise – like a chair squeaking – than it is to misunderstand something that is said… http://nautil.us/blog/this-neural-net-hallucinates-sheep
Alexa Calling doesn’t work by routing calls through your mobile phone. It’s basically a free VoIP service offered by Amazon. It’s activated when you set up the device and can use your mobile phone’s caller ID if configured from the app on your phone.
Unless you deliberately shut it off, you can look up what Alexis heard and what it did about it in the phone app. Go to Activities in the menu and it will show the actions done, most recent on top. Touch More and it’ll show “What Alexis heard,” and below that, “Did Alexis do what you wanted? Yes/No” as a training aid.
The other night I was watching a ST: DS9 episode with a character “Alixus” in it. The dialog triggered Alexis a couple times.