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  All "new" phone numbers are recycled, and there's no way to globally purge or update all the old outdated records and Rolodex cards out there.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]

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.