Phone numbers as we know them may be on their way out.
Telecommunications firms lease numbers to users for a fee, earning them millions of dollars in revenue. But that could be about to change, at least for internet calls, thanks to a numbering directory called Freenum. The service provides numbers free of charge for use on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which handles most online calls.
Internet telephony has become increasingly popular in recent years, thanks largely to the much lower cost of calls. But the lack of a reliable numbering system has meant people have had to continue using conventional phone numbers, says John Todd of California-based TalkPlus, which launched Freenum in partnership with MIT and Internet2, a consortium of more than 200 universities.
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The vast majority of internet telephony – or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) – providers still use a numbering system called e.164 in which numbers are in the usual form, such as +1 415 555 1234. Typically customers pay a fee for the rights to each number they use.
By contrast Freenum numbers are arranged like an email address, for example 3370*260, where the first four digits are the personal identifier and the last three denote the “domain” or institution.
The numbers can be used with any phone that connects to a SIP-enabled network, as all cellular networks and increasing numbers of landline networks now do. To use the numbers over a computer, all the user needs is a piece of free software called a softphone.
VoIP companies such as Skype rely on usernames like “JohnnyDoe” instead of numbers, which is fine if you are using a computer keyboard but makes it difficult to dial from traditional phone handsets.
So far, 285 organisations in 32 countries have registered Freenum domain numbers.
