Geez... Don't get me started on the telephone company. Does anyone remember that movie made back in the 60's or 70's with Richard Pryor where he leads an assult on the phone company with guns? The phone company was run by robots. Seems to match my observations of the local phone company. Gosh you think after 100 years, telephone would be a no brainer. I think one of the problems is all the regulations. The local companies fight with the long distance companies by getting regulations passed and then it seems they try to egg their competitors to break the regs so they have to pay fines and loose customers. The confused customer is caught in the middle of these turf wars.
Another problem is the technology itself. Systems that rely heavily on infrastructure are difficult to materialize and then when they do they are more resistant to new technology. Eventually they are replaced by more agile (less infrastructure reliant) systems. So in spite of customers clearly wanting an alternative the system is handicapped to provide it. "The Last Mile" is the problem. Fortunately, wireless is replacing the last mile but it happened too soon (!) to avoid some of the old switched infrastructure of the system it is replacing. VoIP is coming to the rescue and one of the most exciting form is as a VoIP WiFi although VoIP Cellular will probably make more of a difference in the adoption of the technology. This may eventually translate to a full peer to peer meshnet (with long range relays), addressed UWB, rich media system. But there will be some resistance from the bells to be sure.
One of these days we will free from the switched networks. Then phone numbers could be an alias to whatever your current device IP is. This day will happen when numbers are routed like internet addresses (by a DNS instead of a phone company). Since the CLECs are unlikely to relinquish control over the trunks, the 10-digit phone number will change or go away to some new identifier.
I played with the idea of developing our own cell phone. I called the project, "open phone" because it had the ability to use several carriers at the same time to pick the best signal or fee. Carrier aggergators handled the micropayments. The advantage to the user was more coverage and better signal in those coverage areas, less drop outs, lower rates, more handset choices (due to standardized access protocols), number portability, etc. But I figured the carriers would defend against the program with a bunch of regs. The trick is to offer something more enticing than a captive market to the carriers.
Anyways.
For Arc, I seriously looked into switching our phone systems to VoIP but the details are not quite optimal for us yet.
Woo! Not like this is a soap box of mine or anything! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
So, the phones work again and I am off to other things..
Peter
