Dragging Telephone Numbers Into the Internet Age 239
azoblue writes with this teaser from Ars Technica, presenting a tempting suggestion for online consolidation: "E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here's how it works, and why it isn't already widely used."
Please no!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
All I can think of is SPAM. I understand the idea and sometimes I think it'd be a great tool (especially if you move ISP's etc, everything would move with you kind of like redirecting your real mail when you move house but with less hassle) but I consider my privacy (what little we have left in this world) way more important than having a single identifier.
How about using IP6? (Score:4, Interesting)
A single IP6 address could be enough for all those things.
Why would you want to keep the telephone number? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would you want to keep the telephone number?
The telephone number is a good example of a situation where the technical factor prevailed over the human factor. Numbers are abstract and difficult to remember for most people. And since its invention we have needed to use lists to associate these numbers to things we actually can remember, such as names.
I think it will go completely the other way, and that in 50 years people will never have heard of phone numbers. The identifier will be the email address, and if I want to call someone I select that address and press "call", and a VOIP connection will be made. If I want to IM or mail, I press other buttons.
The email address is easy to remember, it has build-in identification of the purpose you want to use it for (private, business, ...), can already be used for several types of communication (mail, jabber) and is completely transparent to location
Re:It's not the same (Score:5, Interesting)
Impress your friends with geek AND music knowledge. In addition to being the phone number in the Tommy Tutone song, 867-5309 is also a prime number. It's also a prime twin, so (I think) 867-5311 is also a prime number
why backword? (Score:2, Interesting)
Digital stone age (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't this backwards? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why, in this day and age, are we talking about NUMBERS? Do we address websites via IP address? No, we have DNS.
Why isn't there a DNS for phones? I pick a name, perhaps even something as simple and unique as MY EMAIL ADDRESS, and then anyone who knows my email address can contact me. Or, just like DNS, I can set up any number of unique names for various things (my-recruiters@gmail;) that point to some sort of numeric based phone.
You could even call it Phone Name System.
Re:DNS (Score:3, Interesting)
VoIP providers are in the business of running the bridge, which duplicates the functionality of telephone number to IP address mapping like ENUM. You configure the bridge to route calls to your SIP server, and it all works as intended. What makes you think a POTS provider would be willing to route calls over e164.arpa lookup? If they were to implement something new, might as well ask them to implement dialing by URI.
I also don't see why you want a telephone number to redirect to some URI that the phone might not be able to interact with (say, a landline phone dialing a number that maps to an e-mail address). If the phone understands the URI, just enter the URI directly to the phone. I don't even remember phone numbers anymore, but have much better luck with e-mail addresses and IM screen names.
Re:Spam spam spam... (private# and aliases) (Score:3, Interesting)
i've thought about this before - i think what one needs is a single PRIVATE number - that never gets given out to anyone - and you have a bunch of private ALIAS/Reference numbers which you yourself point to your private number - then you only give out the aliases - and if one of the aliases gets overloaded, you pull the plug on the alias, create a new alias, and then direct that new alias towards your private number.
I do that in Gmail with plus-addressing. For instance, if I get spam from Simetrical+dontsendhere@gmail.com, I can just block all mail from that address. Haven't had it happen yet, though.
The Problem with Enum (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with ENUM is that the data is stored in DNS. Which means it is harvestable and intended to be cached. I don't _want_ to share my email addresses, Facebook ID, work, cell and home phone numbers and IM addresses with anyone and everyone. That's just stupid.
ENUM is a Bell-Head protocol invented before spam. It was meant to be easily mirrored between carriers, with the standard behaviour of "caller pays".
What we really need is a protocol that will ask _my software_ where the call should be sent. The software is then able to decide based on the originating details if I want to receive the call, and what endpoint/protocol it should be sent to.
That's what I want. Invidividualised call control at the point of address resolution.
Re:I don't want a "number" (Score:3, Interesting)