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November 30, 2006

New York Times: Here’s My Number (for Today)

New York Times: Here’s My Number (for Today)

"...Some people have found a way to avoid compromising the sanctity of their cellphone without committing the modern sin of being unreachable. Instead of giving out her cell number, Ms. McClain has recently been dispersing what has become known as a “social phone number.”

This is a free number that is as disposable as a Hotmail address. A handful of Web sites are creating these mask numbers, which can be obtained in nearly every area code (users can either have a number in their own region, or make it look as if they have an office in New York City when they are actually operating out of rural Maine)..."

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Not a new concept at all within the world of IP Communications, but it seems that 2007 will be the year that "disposable phone numbers" may really take off in the US.

Tags: VoIP, Jeff Pulver

Posted by jeff on November 30, 2006 08:09 AM | Permalink

Additional resources: #140conf events | Watch the Jeff Pulver Show | Jeff's Qik Videos

Comments

Seems like they'll be passing the buck in the long term -

I still receive calls here in my office from telemarketers who are using a call list which must be at least 6 years old.

They still think that this is the prior company who had the phone number.

If Ms. McClain drops her disposable phone number before someone calls her back, what then? Maybe she just shouldn't give it out in the first place?

I dunno, seems like a mess to me.

Posted by: Michael Bailey at November 30, 2006 03:09 PM

It seems that there is a great opportunity for a new disruptive business that would solve this problem: How do I get the calls I want and filter out the calls I don't want in an easy way?

Clearly to the people in the NY Times article, this is:
*A frequent problem;
*An important problem;
*A problem they can't solve adequately today with current tools, including these new services.

More thoughts on how solving this problem would be a great business opportunity:

http://www.ondisruption.com/my_weblog/2006/11/dont_take_this_.html

Posted by: Michael Urlocker at November 30, 2006 12:45 PM

Disposable phone numbers should apply to VoIP as well. I view VoIP as a world where anyone can phone anyone for free or for a small fee. The basic problem with Ma Bell phone numbers and email addresses is that we chose or are given one designation that we can always be reached at. That's why we have spam, telemarketing calls, and other unwanted content. With VoIP, if we had only one SIP/IAX2 URL that we could be reached at, our phones would never stop ringing.
My approach for disposable phone numbers for VoIP involves a basic whitelist/blacklist approach. I would assign a SIP/IAX2 URL to someone, and only that someone. The trust and intent from there is that the SIP/IAX2 URL is not given out to a third party. If that happens, I can delete the URL to prevent spam. Any attempt to phone me at a URL that doesn't exist would get rejected.
Another idea I have would be to use a company's existing domain name for VoIP calls along with disposable VoIP phone numbers. sip.company.com could point to a session border controller whose purpose is to handle spam/spit prevention. The username portion of the SIP/IAX2 URL would be randomized.
See this web site for more information about preventing SIP spam: http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-sipping-spam-03.txt

Dave Roper
jp.fft@gishpuppy.com

Posted by: Dave Roper at November 30, 2006 11:08 AM