Telepocalypse

Where in the world?

Via Arts and Letters Daily comes a useful reminder on how the intrinsic mobility of cell phones disconnects them from geography, as well as disconnecting the user from their public surroundings.

It's kind of obvious, but you have to point of to telco-heads that IP addresses don't begin with a country code. This is a political statement, that the network world is flat and borderless. The consequence is you can't charge for crossing borders. It's interesting to see this brief twilight world of mobility, but with the pain of international call charges and roaming fees. The stories we will be able to tell our grandchildren!

If Larry Lessig thinks that code is law, then the choice of namespace is part of the constitution. Anything that touches the user's identity must also touch your business relationship. I've seen things like the choice and structure of user identifiers delegated to technical design fora, with executives totally unaware of the long-term business implications of the decisions being made.