I've just had 2 experiences with telephone-related upgrades/moves and I have decided telephone numbers suck. First, I will relate to you the circumstances of my experiences, and then rant about the numbers.

First, Becky and I switched from Nextel to ATTWireless for our mobile phones.  Working for Motorola (now Freescale) finally paid off and I got a substantial discount on a V600, by far the best, and most full-featured phone I had seen come out of Motorola ever.  Everything just works.  Nothing is stupid.  I used to be pretty skeptical of Bluetooth, but I'm a believer now.  I've got a wireless Bluetooth headset, and it just works.  You open it up, and the phone goes into “headset mode” relaying all noises to the headset and receiving all input from the headset mic.  I can write J2ME programs and just transfer them over Bluetooth to the phone.  I'm currently making my own implementation of an Ambient Orb using the event light of the phone.  I just can't figure out how to handle SMS messages from my own code.  Anyway, this paragraph is already too long, so I'll stop.

I got Becky a T721, it's way better than my top of the line Nextel phone, which I gave to Andrew. (which was a cool success story in itself.  I just swapped the SIM cards and it worked)  To make a long story short, we're getting a much better deal with ATTWireless.

I also just signed up for a VoIP (Voice over IP) solution for our home phone, which I will blog about later when I have it set up and can reap the benefits of refering friends and getting paid for it.

In both situations, I was transferring my phone number to another service provider.  After thinking about it, that is just stupid.  Why am I, a person who can move all over the world,  tied to a number that is tied to a certain location?  Most people have trouble remembering numbers.  Let's take a prominent example... You're hungry for some pizza (and who isn't).  You like Dominos, and you're a web savvy guy or girl and want to order online.  Do you grab the “internet book“ and look up the IP address for dominos? Have you ordered online so often that you know the ip address by memory? NO! You type www.dominos.com?  We (Al Gore and I) built the “internet book” into the internet when we invented it.

Why don't we have a solution for phone numbers?  You might argue that that's what the phone book in your phone is for, or speed dial, or the operator, but those are either not universal, or not fast enough.  I suppose the #1 reason is that phones have numbers on them.  We've had to invent ingenious text entry mechanisms like T9 and iTAP (which my V600 has and is awesome!  much better than T9, which my i90c had) to be able to enter text.

Why don't we extend the DNS namespace with a .phone suffix and have them resolve to phone numbers through some system?  DNS servers could resolve them to VoIP gateways. Now, I agree I haven't thought through this all the way, and there's bound to be some kinks, and I'm not so naive to think I'm the first to propose this, but come on, let's get started! I call marklio.phone!

Hello everyone! It's been quite a while since my last addition. There are so many things to talk about, but not enough time. Recently on Webdell's site, the discussion of cellphones and what is good etc was brought up. Several people I'm sure are waiting to get my take on it since I work for one of the larger cell phone manufacturers. To make myself clear to those who don't know, I don't make cell phones. Even though I don't work for the division that makes them (I'm in semiconductors), I do have some opinions that I think people can benefit from.

In my opinion, customer service and network coverage is a much more important factor than the actual phone. If you've managed to find a provider you're satisfied with, great. I use Nextel service. Nextel was originally conceived to be a service for businesses, providing very reliable service at a slightly higher price along with a slew of nifty features such as 2-two radio that works across the country. They now provide some very reasonably priced phones (as well as some ridiculously priced phones), and their rate plans are considerably cheaper than before since they are catering more to the consumer market now.

Regarding flip-phones, I don't think I'd worry about them breaking, but I am aware of feeling like you can't hold it up to your ear very hard. That usually means the volume is too low. Most of the new flip phones can be used without openning them up. You just get more features and options if you do.

As far as built-in digital cameras, I would seriously question the real need for this. Most of the ones on the market take extremely low quality images. You could buy a comparable digital camera in the impulse buy section of H.E.B. for about $15. If you have alot of situations where you see something that no one will believe, then maybe you've got a use for it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't really think of a good use.

If you really want a phone with a cool feature will last a while in the usefulness department, get one with built-in Bluetooth. Both Motorola and Nokia make these. It allows you to connect wirelessly to things like:

• Your PC -- to synchronize calendar, address book, download games, etc.
• A headset -- Jabra makes a really cool one that wraps behind your ear. Freak out everyone in the grocery store by making it look like you're talking to yourself!
• A keyboard -- to type emails, etc.
• A printer -- to print...stuff

Motorola's working with some automotive companies to use Bluetooth to send information about your car to a bluetooth-enabled cell phone. They've specifically been working on an embedded device that monitors tire pressure and send warnings when that is low. Lock/unlock doors, use integrated car-mounted hands-free kits, turn down stereo volume when you get a call. You get the idea.

Integrated GPS is another cool feature I've seen. Well, it's late and I don't think I've resolved anything. Unfortunately, with all the transport techologies (iDen, CDMA, TDMA, GSM) and all the different providers, we've created very restrictive environment for the cell phone market. Many new phones are supporting more technologies, but providers are still the gatekeepers to creating a truly flexible environment. I guess we've got the same problems in most of the markets today. Computer hardware is becoming more cross-functional with standards like USB and Firewire, but the CPU market is still relatively closed. We got OS wars and Cola wars. Car manufacturers are pretty proprietary. It's a wonder that tires can fit multiple vehicles.

I think I've raised more questions that answers. Feel free to comment.