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I thought this was a great read, and there are a lot of points to discuss. Do you think that by purchasing service from a wireless co that the consumer then has property rights over the telephone number and should be able to transfer it to another service? Do you think that the wireline industry should be de-regulated in order to allow them to compete with wireless providers that are taking their customers?
Personally, I believe that a phone number, when paid for, does belong to the customer, and that they should be able to transfer it to other services. The telco does not own any digits, and so doesn't really have any claim to the number. If you want to compare this to ISPs and ISP email addresses, it's different -- the ISP owns the domain name "isp.net", so any name@isp.net email address is their property after the customer has transferred service.
As for deregulation, I don't see what harm it would cause, it would merely allow the wireline telcos to compete with the wireless threat to their business. [/B]
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edit: fixed it for you
The provider never owned the phone number to begin with. They are assigned a certain set of numbers and exchanges when they obtain a license from state and federal regulatory agencies. In theory we all own these numbers ( the government). This is done to prevent chaos.
Allowing number portability will allow a lot more switching between providers, both wired and wireless. Also it increases capacity because fewer numbers will have to be put on the sidelines after service is canceled before being assigned to another user.
Telecom is still going through changes. The long term viabilty of wired phones for person to person communication is much in doubt. The lines will eventually be transferred to data transmission and other uses. The technology is no longer competitive with wireless in most areas, and does not provide as much freedom and productivity.