In another thread I just made the comment that the FCC should require phone companies to ship the Caller ID NAME along with the Caller ID number on calls, as I believe is done in Canada and as occurs when calls go via direct SIP (in most cases). There may have been some justification at one time for not sending the name with the number, but as legacy phone switches go the way of the dodo in favor of IP switching, there is really no justification left for doing separate name lookups when a call is received. It's inefficient and in many cases it just isn't working the way you'd like (for example, when you get "Wireless Caller" instead of an actual name).
But there are a couple of other things that still exist that have outlived their usefulness, as far as I am concerned. One is the idea of a domestic "toll call". In the very near future it seems to me that the FCC should just recognize the new reality that within the United States, "a call is a call". It seems to me that the only reason to maintain a distinction between local and toll calls is to allow certain vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society to continue to be gouged with toll call pricing - in particular the elderly, the uneducated, and prisoners (this includes people who are awaiting trial, and have not yet been convicted of any crime). Most kids today don't even understand what they are talking about when they watch an old movie and a character places a "collect" call, or "reverses the charges", or someone in the background complains that the call is costing money because it's long distance. It seems to me that it's time that the pages and pages of useless regulations that make a distinction between local and toll calls should disappear real soon now.
The other thing that should go away are geographically-based exchanges. When someone moves, if they have a cell phone or a VoIP service (true VoIP, not the cable company variety) they can just keep their existing phone number. But if they get "telephone service" from the local cable or telephone company, they are often required to get a new number even though they may just be moving a few miles down the road. If we go with the idea that "a call is a call" then there is no need for geographic exchange boundaries. And if phone companies insist on having service area boundaries they can still do that; after all the cable companies have their service area boundaries that have nothing to do with phone exchange boundaries.
I'm sure some accommodation could be made for "legacy" telephone switches that aren't capable of moving calls around using IP for a few more years (just as was done for phone switches that couldn't handle selection of a long distance carrier back in the 80's and early 90's) but since it's usually so much cheaper to move to an IP solution anyway, there's no reason the phone companies couldn't do this in most areas. Also they might actually keep a few customers that discontinue their service because they can't keep their existing number after a move, assuming they even want to keep serving wireline customers (which seems to be less the case as time goes by).
Just thought I'd throw this out there. I have no idea how you'd propose such things to the FCC, but if you do and you think any of these are good ideas, feel free to take them and run with them.
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I refuse to believe that corporations are people until Texas executes one.
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