Slashdot Mirror
Ebay Suspends Phone Number Sales
wellingt writes "According to the
Jackson Sun, the attention brought by the sale of Jenny's famous 867-5309 has led Ebay to evaluate whether or not phone numbers are the property of their owner, and whether they can be sold. Verizon has made the claim otherwise."
Yes, you do not "own" the number, but what's different here than all the auctions for domain names? You don't "own" the domain - you lease it from the registrars/ICANN/whatever. The phone companies let you transfer phone numbers just like you can transfer a domain, so what's the difference?
/.'d than they'd make in commission.
Maybe eBay just realized they're losing more in bandwidth charges from being
Well, it's already slow, but yes, why shouldn't phone numbers be salable? They're a part of you; you give out your phone number, when people call they expect to get you. So they're property, at least to a degree, and you can definitely sell property. What's the problem here?
While I think people are clearly renting the phone numbers (if you don't pay the phone company, they take it away and can re-issue it), it seems you own the rights to use that number while paying for it. So, that people can sell "the right to use the number while paying for it" seems fair enough.
On the other hand, if we look at phone numbers in the same light as domain names (e.g. identifiers to get a query to a place that information can be retrieved), a whole new can of worms is opened. People say they own a domain name, but it may be more like renting than owning outright. Same as with phone numbers. If you don't pay the fee every year, it is taken away and can be re-issued to someone else.
The only thing that throws the analogy is that there are certain numbers "given" to the phone companies, if I understand correctly, whereas domains, the company has no claim to the letters.
Someone with deeper telecomm operations experience should be able to answer this, but given that we have cell number portability, do the numbers belong to *anyone* other than NANPA (North American Numbering Plan Administration)?
A related question for your hard-core telcomm people, since portability presumes any number can go anywhere, how do carriers assign new numbers to new devices? What pool do they come from? And what happens when service is terminated -- where do those numbers go?
My *guess* is that NANPA assigns NXX blocks (prefix/exchanges) to carriers, who then assign them to end nodes. Portability simply means that when someone wants to move to another carrier, the ported number gets put into an exception database someplace that is shared among carriers. Numbers not in the exception database are routed to whoever was assigned the NXX block originally. When service ends for a number, an exception database entry is removed if it exists, and the number "returns" to the NXX block assignee it originated from.
All of that is moot, though, if number portability means ALL numbers are in an exception database and number assignments simply happen in a queue from this master number database, and NANPA no longer assigns NXX blocks to carriers this way.
If this is true, then it seems fair game for me to re-assign my number to anyone else since only NANPA would have any claim on it. If the other assertion is true (NXX assignments to carriers, with an exception database and return-to-assignment on release), then Verizon or other carriers may have a legit beef, especially if they have to buy NXX blocks from NANPA or pay fees for them.
a buddy of mine wrote a song with HIS telephone number in it. then he would sing it out at club and other places hoping chicks would call him.
i found the whole endevor quite humorous
When I recently ported my mobile number, the salesman made me verify that I still lived within the region associated with the area code. I began to wonder when the area code/number system will be deemed outdated. It is still beneficial for determining local vs. long distance calls for land lines but, as more people move to mobile service with unlimited long distance, it seems to lose its relevance. I'd rather keep my number if I moved to a new state so that people would still know how to reach me than get a new number that identified my geography. I would think that the current reliance on area codes has more to do with mobile switching technology than customer demand. I wonder if the balance of interests between phone companies and their customers will tip again in the next few years, leading to a a "national number portability" law that mirrors the recent "local number portability" law.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
They have been all along. This is the concept of a "golden" number, the ability to request your number's last four digits so you're sure it spells the word you want it to. The phone company charges a monthly fee for this service... however, if the word you want has already been randomly assigned in all the exchanges local to you, you're just plain out of luck.
Also to note, most "golden" numbers are in the toll free, pay service, or choke switch ranges where the golden number service is included in the main definition of the service. However, toll free and pay services are costly phone services to operate, and very
The right to transfer your golden number? Nope. What you have to do is transfer the legal entity that owns the golden number... usually that means creating a spinoff company that inherits the phone service as one of its "obligations", and then sell that company. Thing is, businesses can create spinoff companies... people can't create a spinoff of themselves, kids don't count.
I asked them about it years ago, and someone from Blizzard said that there are some things they "just won't comment on."
So while they probably don't approve, they aren't all up in arms about it like Sony was over EQ.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
So, all you need is ONE cooperative provider, and this becomes moot. Infact, there might be a niche for a provider who doesn't even provide phone service: just ownership transference:
1) transfer yourself, with phone num, to borgizon for a fee to verizon
2) borgizon lets you sell it to me
3) I transfer back to verizon, for another fee
As far as verizon is concerned, no number was sold.
Ironically enough an auction is the *only* place you can sell stolen property.
Auctions exist partly for that reason. That's why in order to have an auction it must be publically advertised and the goods displayed *before* the day of the sale.
If property had been auctioned in this way it was deemed to be un-stolen.
At least in the UK anyway.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Verizon seems to be saying corporations have the right to buy and sell phone numbers but regular folks don't. It figures, it's just more of the same crap we get all the time.