I still find it annoying

[unixronin]

...that at least 50% of the calls I receive on my cell phone that are not from cymrullewes are wrong numbers.  This is a symptom of the problem that there are no never-previously-issued phone numbers left any more, except in not-yet-in-use area codes.  All "new" phone numbers are recycled, and there's no way to globally purge or update all the old outdated records and Rolodex cards out there.

Comments

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

This could be easily solved if the TelCos gave away the meta-data on the Internet (the directory). Alas, they sell that, so don't hold your breath waiting for the obvious solution.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

They wouldn't even really have to give away the metadata. Phone numbers are completely "soft" these days anyway, and I think all major landline phone companies now offer reasonably-priced flat-rate billing plans with unlimited calling and no additional long distance charges. So the obvious next step is to break the mapping of area codes to geographic regions and say, "OK, we have this flat ten-digit number space, of which these prefixes are reserved and all the rest is freely usable. This number is yours FOREVER. Wherever you move within the North American continent, you can take it with you."

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

Um, that's already been done. It's called "a cell phone" or ... a "social security number".

What I meant was "call by name" instead of "call by number" - our trouble is that the directories are all static, especially the one in your cell phone or computer address book. I'm told that the Plaxo.com system attempts to deal with this - why shouldn't I be able to update my entry in your address book? Or at least have your address book reference me by a central directory which I update?

There are, of course, privacy issues ...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

What I meant was "call by name" instead of "call by number" -

Yes, I figured. My point is that if all phone numbers are portable, not just cell numbers, then phone numbers can be static, which means call-by-name becomes a much simpler problem (though disambiguation is still an issue). The next step is then to virtualize that number across all the possible ways of contacting you ... And so on.