Regular readers will be familiar with my occasional flights of fancy on how the telephone system could be improved. Here’s today’s installation.
I think my home phone number is close to that of the local Chinese takeaway, as I get about one wrong number every month or two. (In fact, I get more misdialled calls on my home line than wanted ones — I hardly use the landline.) It’s awfully tempting to answer the question “Hi, can I order a chicken chow mein?” with “Just a moment, I’ll check in the fridge…”, and get some amusement out of it all.
Really, though, I want to get rid of this nuisance.
One way would have been to partition the numbering space differently. The former UK regulator, OFTEL, made a total mess of the UK numbering system over a period of about 20 years, forcing multiple changes on people. They reserved several number ranges that remain out of general use. The 01xxx and 02xxx could have been for residential addresses (as now), and 03xxx could have been separated out for businesses, for example. It would then have been obvious that you were dialling the wrong class of number. We could even have had a more subtle system of caller ID where private residences might see your number, but by default businesses don’t (or any other combination of the user’s choice).
Another more VoIP-ish way of dealing with the problem would be to have a system that looks up the callee name before placing the call. For mobile handsets, this would work for manually dialled calls because you always have to press the green button. Given I’m ex-directory, it might just say “Private residential address — detail withheld.” It wouldn’t be technically hard to do a real-time directory look-up as you press the digits. Culturally for a telco, though, improving the voice and SMS applications that drive all the revenue seems to be a no-go area.
Ultimately, it’s a problem of economics. There’s no penalty for dragging me out of the shower to tell you I really don’t have any intention of delivering you a stir fry. What I want to be able to do is dial 7726 for SPAM after any call, and you become a few pounds worse off — and I get compensated, with Mr Telco in the middle taking a cut. You can then bet that the market would find ways of encouraging the clumsy to take more care over who they disturb.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 02:47 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/773.
i live one digit off from a taxi company's number. you have no idea how many inebriated wake up calls i get when the bars close.
then again, if i can get paid for misdialed numbers, count me in for number squatting.
Posted by: at August 8, 2006 08:40 PMI think Ofcom's recent numbering consultation has proposed seperating 03 for business.
Posted by: at August 8, 2006 09:17 PMMartin, why don't you set up an Asterisk server that plays a welcome message "Press 1 to order a Chinese takeaway or hold to speak to family Geddes". If the takeaway was on VoIP you could probably forward the call for free (but you probably wouldn't - 1 would tell them the correct number and disconnect).
As you touched on in another post, it's the inability of the telephone system to convey 'intention' that is the problem (e.g. click on the menu to phone the takeaway with ?dish=stirfry). The edge-based development of a system of, say, additional tones would not work because the person connected to the wrong edge. Only a standard mechanism could elicit a sensible response.
It will happen eventually.
The other day - random outsourced telemarketer..."Is that Mrs. Harrowell?"
"Yes, but I've just taken the hormones."
Posted by: at August 9, 2006 03:14 PMOr taking Paul's Asterisk idea one step further, '1' should connect to a rival takeaway (or a list), and get the other takeaways to pay you a commission fee for each call connected.
Posted by: at August 9, 2006 05:10 PMIsn't that why Strowger invented mechanical exchanges in the first place?
Posted by: at August 9, 2006 09:13 PMHow would you prevent this business model:
Dial 1000 random numbers.
When they call you back, dial the SPAM number.
Gain a few thousand pounds.
?
Posted by: at August 9, 2006 10:52 PMHow many of those thousand would result in *you* being tagged a spammer?
Strowger supposedly invented the automatic switch to prevent the malign influence of operators who would divert calls to rival businesses. A dumb pipe, indeed.
Posted by: at August 10, 2006 09:30 AM