Why is it that phone numbers in the UK don’t have a standardised format? In the 9 months since I’ve moved here I’ve seen the following number formats (the number used here is the BT corporate enquires number):

• 020 7356 5000
• 0207 356 5000
• 02073 565000 (mostly used for cell phones only, starting with 07)
• +44 (0) 2073 565 000
• 0044 2073 565 000

Whereas the US has a nice, simple format: +1 (215) 518-1384 for mobiles or landlines (this used to be my number when I lived in Philadelphia). A little simple math to compute the number of available phone numbers (as per the North American Numbering Plan) assuming numbers start at 210-110-1000 and end at 998-998-9999 and excluding the 5 billion and 8 billion range, allows for 7,888,889,000 numbers. That is slightly more than the population of the entire earth! If this is enough for the US, Canada and a bunch of other smaller countries that use it, why isn’t it enough for ~60 million people in the UK?

Also, there seems to be no single/simple charging structure to call a customer service number. Location free numbers here start with 08, and are usually 0844, 0845, 0870 or 0871. The calls to these numbers vary by the provider one has, the date and time one is making the call, and carious other minutia. And calling from a cell phone usually results in a 20p or 25p per minute charge. This is absolute craziness if you need to call Avis customer service and you’re stuck on a highway. 

Anyway, the reason I started this rant about phone numbers is that I got thinking about why we use numbers to identify a person whom I’m calling. In the age of Facebooks, Twitters and Googles, doesn’t this seem very 20th century? Why can’t I just pick up my phone, choose a person from my contact list and call them without having to have a number for them? In the world of IPv6, where every networked device can be identified anyway, if I was able to link my email address to my devices IPv6 address (or to multiple IPv6 addresses), it eliminates the need for a phone number.

This is a little bit of what Apple is doing with Facetime, I think, but it needs a big telecoms provider to get behind the concept for it to take off. How great would it be if the push came from a telecom giant in the developing world. They are already larger that AT&T or Verizon can ever hope to be – it would be a great disruptor to the world wide telecommunications system. 

Ahhh, pipe dreams.