Allowing people to port their ID to a new number sounds pretty important though.

Allowing people to port their ID to a new number sounds pretty important though.

In the early days of land lines, telcomms assumed that the phone identified the customer. They used the telephone number as the customer id and got into *big* problems with billing, marketing, and customer service. (I worked personally on projects trying to fix the problem).

The fact is, there isn’t a one to one relationship between the phone and customer. People change phone numbers and buy new mobile phones. Some people have multiple phone numbers (I’ve got ones in three countries – USA, UK, and Israel). An effective mobile solution still needs to figure out the person behind the number. Otherwise customer history will be lost or fractured and with it the continuity of marketing and relationship data.

People also share phones – its not uncommon to keep an older pay-as-you-go phone around the house for house guests. Providers could get into serious billing or privacy problems if they simply assumed that the person pushing the buttons was the person who last accessed the website using the phone.

In the early days of land lines, telcomms assumed that the phone identified the customer. They used the telephone number as the customer id and got into *big* problems with billing, marketing, and customer service. (I worked personally on projects trying to fix the problem).

The fact is, there isn’t a one to one relationship between the phone and customer. People change phone numbers and buy new mobile phones. Some people have multiple phone numbers (I’ve got ones in three countries – USA, UK, and Israel). An effective mobile solution still needs to figure out the person behind the number. Otherwise customer history will be lost or fractured and with it the continuity of marketing and relationship data.

People also share phones – its not uncommon to keep an older pay-as-you-go phone around the house for house guests. Providers could get into serious billing or privacy problems if they simply assumed that the person pushing the buttons was the person who last accessed the website using the phone.

Also agree with Nicola and Simon.

Also agree with Nicola and Simon.

I think operator driven LBS is going to fizzle. It is to much hassle, costs to much and can be achieved via cheaper methods another way. I thinking something along the lines of Google Map that either triangulates the signal on the phone, uses the Cell Tower ID or uses built in GPS to get approximate position that would work for queries such as “Where is my nearest ATMs?” which are displayed with icons along with something showing your current location.

I just remain a sceptic about a lot of the hype surrounding mobiles. I do expect to see new and unknown services to arise that harness the uniqueness of mobile phones and the power of the internet. I just don’t see this fundamentally changing the existing internet rather extending is reach and power.

I think operator driven LBS is going to fizzle. It is to much hassle, costs to much and can be achieved via cheaper methods another way. I thinking something along the lines of Google Map that either triangulates the signal on the phone, uses the Cell Tower ID or uses built in GPS to get approximate position that would work for queries such as “Where is my nearest ATMs?” which are displayed with icons along with something showing your current location.

I just remain a sceptic about a lot of the hype surrounding mobiles. I do expect to see new and unknown services to arise that harness the uniqueness of mobile phones and the power of the internet. I just don’t see this fundamentally changing the existing internet rather extending is reach and power.