So, smaller US carriers are doing an AT&T Wireless and failing to prepare for number portability in the hope that the FCC will lose nerve and delay the whole thing.
The answer to all this is simple to describe, if complex to implement. Stop leasing phone number to phone companies. Sell them direct to the public. As fungible property. Just like domain names. Want to use a phone number for your VoIP system? Just buy one. Need a virtual fax service? Buy another.
Number portability would go away. I would own the number. I would control who it gets delegated to. Now my telco might choose to also bundle number registration with voice service, but nothing would force me to buy an identity from them.
It would also have a liberating effect on innovation, and indeed a rejuvenating effect on telcos. Imagine that any two guys in a garage can create an innovative communications service which uses telephone numbers. No need to become a registered telecommunications provider. No need to sub-let phone numbers from helpful local carriers. Just do it.
The phone number system is in competition with other namespaces. (Although the telcos can’t feel it, and don’t realize they’re losing ground.) If you’re a telco, you want new lifeblood injected into the current phone number namespace. For the next generation of customers, telephony is a minor feature of an instant messaging client. Need I say more?
Barriers to execution? Well, number exhaust has been one barrier to increased issuance of telephone numbers. But really, who cares? If there is a genuine shortage, why not let a market pricing mechanism decide who values them?
Also, the tying of tariffs to area codes (local vs. regional vs. long-distance calling) makes some numbers more valuable than others. But “area code arbitrage” is already a reality with VoIP. My Vonage code is in Seattle, my home in Kansas. Friends in Seattle call for free. Ones in Kansas don’t. The system’s obsolete. Charging by distance for narrowband voice is about as logical as charging by the number of digits in the phone number. It doesn’t make any sense. The price no longer has any relation to value or service cost.
Doesn’t ENUM do all this for us? Well, yes and no. No, because it’s just a technology. No, because it doesn’t change the governance of phone number issuance (and that’s a country-specific thing anyway.) And yes, it could play a part if done right.
So, to recap. Number portability is a hideous con. The public has paid a fortune to perpetuate a governance model that’s counter to their own interests. You don’t expect the government to name your children, so why accept telco control of your virtual identity? Why lamely accept the absence of property rights? Isn’t it time to end this telephonic serfdom?
Posted by Martin Geddes at 10:36 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/255.
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Mine all mine:
»
Geddes on number portability from Stephen Laniel’s Unspecified Bunker
Martin Geddes has a great little piece on why number portability is a con,
and why we all ought to be able to own our own phone numbers.
That is, rather than drawing from a pool of phone numbers that
the phone company owns, then going through some comple
[Read more]
»
Geddes on number portability from Stephen Laniel’s Unspecified Bunker
Martin Geddes has a great little piece on why number portability is a con,
and why we all ought to be able to own our own phone numbers.
That is, rather than drawing from a pool of phone numbers that
the phone company owns, then going through some comple
[Read more]
»
Number Ownership from dwlt.thinksOutLoud
Telepocalypse has an interesting post about direct ownership of telephone numbers, handled in the same manner as domain names. Personally, I think this is a great idea, and one which is deserving of investigation (at the least) by a forward...
[Read more]
»
Leaving for San Diego from James Seng's Blog
I am posting this from the SIA Lounge waiting to fly to San Diego for IETF #60. The main purpose there is to organize a "Carrier ENUM" mini-BoF with Richard Stastny on Wed afternoon. Carrier ENUM aka known as Infrast
[Read more] Tracked on July 31, 2004 02:25 AM»
phones and Telepocalypse by Martin Geddes: Mine all mine from
Survey: Cell phone customers cant get no satisfaction - Customers couldn t switch to cingular with their phones and were told they had to pay termination charges or buy new phones. in computing overall satisfaction.
[Read more]
Provocative idea. The right question is indeed how is the bottle neck governed? The DNS history is full of governance lessons; there romantic affection for market goverance created Verisign.
Posted by: at May 16, 2004 09:57 AMSO how does vonage get control of a phone number I had for 15 years, it was really seemless?
Posted by: at May 16, 2004 01:01 PMI should have mentioned from SBC?
Posted by: at May 16, 2004 01:01 PMInteresting idea; at first, I thought the post was going to be about how the smaller carriers should be looking at number portability as a massive opportunity...
Posted by: at May 17, 2004 09:35 AMI was wondering how the telcos would manage number issuance when VoIP mobile phones become mainstream. Would the numbers that an operator deliver be part of the "classic" system or will they be under a separate directory ? And thus add to the confusion ;)
Posted by: at May 17, 2004 11:54 AMSince you wrote this I've been wondering what a phone # is worth. The cheaper domain names are really cheap. With a modicum of infrastructure places like iconnecthere or deltathree are renting numbers for 5-10$/month. Ah bundling. That looks unstable.
Posted by: at May 28, 2004 10:26 AM