Mobile phone numbers could be obsolete by 2020! GMAIL CALLING makes this a possibilty

[mlts22]

I hope not. Phone numbers provide a certain level of anonymity. I don't want people to be able to call me just because they have my name and location.

I think we will all continue to use phone numbers, but voice services will transition to a purely packet-switched data service instead of its current circuit switched implementation. There are VoIP standards that were recently adopted for LTE that do just this.

LTE and all 4G networks like Sprint's are completely VoIP, where everything sent are pure TCP/IP packets. This is good and bad. The bad thing is that oftentimes, VoIP sounds like crap. The good thing is that it requires less processing and fewer bands of radio.

 

[njspence]

Here are the follow-ups to the original post on "without numbers"

http://blog.stevenspencer.net/2010/...ng-on-leadership-mobile-without-phone-number/


(recent one on VZW adding Skype to Android)


http://blog.stevenspencer.net/2009/03/02/cheers-and-jeers-for-mobile-without-numbers/

(This one is a response to the initial responses from a years ago...)


Cheers!

 

[Bonds79]

http://blog.stevenspencer.net/2009/02/23/the-future-of-mobile-without-phone-numbers/

interest read

Mobile Numbers will definately be obsolete in the future seems that with GMAIL calling and other future advancements this will put mobile numbers to become obsolete in the next 10 to 15 years.

I am willingly to bet carrier voice/text plans will die in the next 5 to 8 years especially when services like google voice start using data for voice and text messages.