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Australia Trials Phone To IP Service

Posted by Zonk on from the telemarketers-only-get-access-to-my-email-spam dept.

daria42 writes "Australia is doing trial runs with a technology which could connect conventional phone numbers with Web pages, Internet fax services and other online resources. Subscribers to an ENUM service register their other contact details, then set up rules that control how and when calls to their phone are routed. For example, calls from anybody but close family could be routed straight to voicemail between 6pm and 11pm. Because it connects to any IP service, incoming callers could also use phone numbers to access Web sites, the Skype VoIP application, faxes and other applications."

3 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Adventures in improper English, part 86 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Trial" is not a verb, you illiterate simp.

  2. Wrong Way by Phat_Tony · · Score: 2, Insightful
    This is neat, but they're going the wrong direction. Memorizing a 10-digit number instead of the word "Google" isn't making things much easier for people

    I want the opposite: I want my phone number to be arbitrary text of my choosing. I want the whole phone system to use good voice recognition, so that any time I want to call anyone, if I can remember their phone-moniker, all I have to do is say it into the phone. A DNS-like system will go reference this to their actual phone number, IP address, or whatever address and protocol they choose to use for voice communications, and connect me.

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  3. Agreed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People don't seem to realize that the phone companies have been using VoIP for years! That's right, Verizon was using VoIP in large scale production more than five years ago and so were many other phone companies. But, they were using it over their own private lines, not the Wild Wild West internet.

    VoiP cannot be reliable over a shared medium where there is no control. The phone companies know this already and the consumer and Vonages of the world are about to find out too. At that point, everyone will come running back to the phone companies and they will find that the phone company is either gone or is ready to REALLY stick it to them.

    People expect 5 nines(99.999%) reliability because that is what the phone company has provided for the past 40 or more years. They will be shocked to find out that their internet connection is only about 95% reliable. That's one and a half nines. There is no way that people will put up with a phone that is less reliable than a cell phone, even if it is dirt cheap!