Phone Numbers Go Locationless

flipper65 writes "Well, it looks like one of the last bastions of the regional Bells is under attack. Now your VoIP provider can give you their own area code and exchange. With the proliferation of broadband and voice services, your land line is now as mobile as your cell phone, and cheaper. Look for this to turn in to a battle royal. The regional bells will not go quietly into that good night."

Comments

I Wonder...

[Supernoma]

...what the phone companies are going to try and do about this? I can see them charging long distance to people with the VoIP area codes.

Yay.

[Fookin]

Welcome to caller-id hell.

Imagine ordering a pizza?

[bs_02_06_02]

I think that this will self-regulate itself very nicely.
Here's why: I have friends who already live in my area code, yet use cell phones with numbers from out of state. If I call them on my landline, I incur long distance charges. They know this, and they don't really like it. It's tough to order a pizza from an out-of-state cellphone. Pizza shops don't like it.
I use my cellphone more and more to avoid long distance, and I have really no interest in VoIP although I've been a courtesy customer, trialing VoIP for almost 18 months. I don't want to have a different area code than my neighborhood.

There are a lot of things that won't be very pretty. 911 service will be the one that the phone company will complain about.
People are used to area codes and exchanges being located in certain areas. Moving... well, it'll make the numbers less important. And wrong numbers could get to be VERY expensive.

The saddest part is that most legislators aren't bright enough to figure any of this out for themselves. They'll go with whoever sends them campaign money. They'll say that they're looking into it, but really, they'll just vote by whichever lobbyist gets them the most money.