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Date Posted:
Tuesday November 25, 2003 04:14:18 PM
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Hi,
I enjoyed reading about your view and I would like to add
my European point of view to it.
In several countries in Europe (ie., Germany), taking your
mobile phone number from one provider to the other one is
already possible as long as I can remember. There is usually
a fee of about EUR30-50 involved, which sometimes is covered
by the new provider. It is usually not possible to use your
regular phone number for your mobile phone (but you can
forward a call to your mobile).
I don't know how many customers are actually using this service,
but I do believe that in many occasions it helps (in particular
small) businesses and private persons to reduce trouble when
switching over to a new provider. For many small businesses
(ie., freelancers) it might be essential to keep the same mobile
phone number. The lack of that possibility would basically mean
that they have to stick with your old provider, which might offer
a much worse plan for them than others. Here I really do believe
that being able to keep the number, will add competition.
Of course this is inconvenient and costly for the providers; any
change that provides better service might be more costly.
The same is true if you are going to have more than one
provider per country, but nobody really wants that.
I also think that the market should decide if the switching
customer pays its share of the costs. Some (new) providers might
decide to cover it, some might not.
In your fourth point you mentioned that "most people have
managed to survive quite well without it.". This is probably
true for many innovations in the past, ie., the telephone (people
have survived before the 20th century without it), TV, etc,
although I don't believe that you are arguing against those, right?
Finally, I do believe that this will not dramatically change the
world of mobile telecommunication; neither to the worse, nor to the
better. For most aspects, it will stay the same.
Dirk Bartz
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