Telepocalypse

Mine all mine

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?