Fake phone calls in the DeviceEmulator (PDC 2005 followup)

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After our talk on the Device Emulator, a number of people asked me about the phone numbers I used in my demo of Windows Mobile 5.0.  I used one number to send an SMS message the looped back, and another to test a busy signal from the dialer app.

The Windows Mobile 5.0 Phone Edition image for the Device Emulator contains a virtual radio driver called "fakeril" (Fake Radio Interface Layer).   The "fakeril" enables testing of some phone functionality without actually using a real phone radio.  This is advantageous even on true phone hardware, to save the risk/expense of making phone calls to real destinations, like 911.

You'll see that FakeRIL is present on the emulator if you see the antenna icon and the "G" icon (for GSM) at the top of the display.  Clicking on the antenna will report "Fake Network".

There are a number of posts that mention the special number 1-425-001-0001, such as https://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2004/04/27/121497.aspx.  If you send an SMS message to that number, the message will loop back and arrive as a message from that number.

In addition to the SMS loopback number, there are quite a few other interesting numbers:

Voice numbers:  7272470, 7272979, 7272620, 7272917, 7272688, 7272263, 7274390, 7274388, 7274386, and 7274389

Data numbers:  7272455, 7272931, 727343, and 7273432

Always busy:  7272024

Never answer:  7272773

Emergency:  911, 112, 08, 999

SMS: 0010001 0010002

All other numbers, such as 1-203-555-1212, act like voice numbers.

To send an SMS message, do the following:

  1. Go to Start / Messaging
  2. Click Menu / Switch Accounts... at the bottom of the screen and select "Text Messages"
  3. Click New
  4. In the "To" section, type 0010001
  5. Type in your SMS message body
  6. Click Send

The message will be sent, then you'll immediately receive an SMS from 001-0001 that contains a copy of your message text.