How many of us remember the phone numbers of even five of our friends? When you make a call on your smartphone, you don't type in the phone number - you click on the person's name instead. The only reason why phone numbers are still important is because we have regular phones where you actually have to dial a number and because it serves its purpose as an identifier when you want to give it to someone else.
But while the telephone number has served us faithfully for decades, it's increasingly at odds with the way identities are managed in today's world. For one, the phone number is a model of inflexibility. Whenever you change your device, you have to struggle to keep your existing phone number. It's not easily accessible from another country and you have to pay huge fees in order to continue operating as usual. Compare this to a modern form of addressing like email. You never have to change your email ID when you change your device and moving to a new country is irrelevant in the context of the Internet.
The two networks - phone and Internet highlight how much the world has changed in the last decade. The Internet is a pan global network which behaves the same no matter where in the world you are - and this is how an addressing system should look like. When you ask someone for their "number," you're actually asking for a handle on which you can reach them. A telephone number is notoriously fickle. Most phone numbers move around and there's no permanency.
VoIP and SIP systems are trying to change this by making a person's SIP address just like an email ID. Depending on which company you have your SIP address with, your identifier will be your username@whateveritsp.com. Such things are easier to remember as well. Telephone numbers with their numeric systems are like IP addresses - meaningless. But an SIP address is like a website - a branding tool that also makes sense and is easy to keep track of.
Right now the biggest hurdle to the migration to SIP addresses is that services have poor or no interconnectivity. The day a VoIP service's customers can communicate with those of any other VoIP service in the world is the day VoIP would have truly arrived. There are numerous problems along with efforts by the telcos to prevent such an inter connected directory, but we're advancing slowly and the time isn't far off when telephone numbers will be a thing of the past.
But while the telephone number has served us faithfully for decades, it's increasingly at odds with the way identities are managed in today's world. For one, the phone number is a model of inflexibility. Whenever you change your device, you have to struggle to keep your existing phone number. It's not easily accessible from another country and you have to pay huge fees in order to continue operating as usual. Compare this to a modern form of addressing like email. You never have to change your email ID when you change your device and moving to a new country is irrelevant in the context of the Internet.
The two networks - phone and Internet highlight how much the world has changed in the last decade. The Internet is a pan global network which behaves the same no matter where in the world you are - and this is how an addressing system should look like. When you ask someone for their "number," you're actually asking for a handle on which you can reach them. A telephone number is notoriously fickle. Most phone numbers move around and there's no permanency.
VoIP and SIP systems are trying to change this by making a person's SIP address just like an email ID. Depending on which company you have your SIP address with, your identifier will be your username@whateveritsp.com. Such things are easier to remember as well. Telephone numbers with their numeric systems are like IP addresses - meaningless. But an SIP address is like a website - a branding tool that also makes sense and is easy to keep track of.
Right now the biggest hurdle to the migration to SIP addresses is that services have poor or no interconnectivity. The day a VoIP service's customers can communicate with those of any other VoIP service in the world is the day VoIP would have truly arrived. There are numerous problems along with efforts by the telcos to prevent such an inter connected directory, but we're advancing slowly and the time isn't far off when telephone numbers will be a thing of the past.
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