Phone numbers: from datablocks to random assignments
Those crazy incumbents. News.com is reporting on their latest mis-adventure in “Net phone hang-ups looming?”
Net telephony providers such as Vonage and Net2Phone enjoy an unfettered stream of new numbers passed down from other carriers, which they can hand out to customers as they wish. Now, Verizon Communications, BellSouth and Qwest Communications International want federal regulators to tell the newcomers to heel.
Verizon and the others raised their concerns most recently at a meeting Wednesday of the North American Numbering Council (NANC). The industry group is chartered by the Federal Communications Commission and is charged with developing policies on how to distribute telephone numbers.
If successful, some observers warn, the lobbying push could dampen the market for Internet-telephone service in the United States.
“The results could choke off the industry before it really gets going,” according to a source familiar with the ongoing debate.
Now why would they do this? Could it have anything to do with the “phone number shortage?” Why is it that current phone numbers are assigned in vast blocks that, by in large, are unused by certain carriers? What about number portability? Are they afraid they’ll have to route a call from a designer phone number that they don’t collect a monthly fee on? What’s the deal here?