This may be one of the most controversial posts I will write this year. The headline alone screams death phone numbers as we know them thus the death to telecom business but, no they still have a huge role to play in the future of modern communications.
Why do we need phone numbers? Well, its the way your carrier (mobile network provider) can easily identify you and millions of other subscribers out there. At the end of the day, whenever I get a new phone, I will just hook it up to the nearest WiFi, download my social media app and login into my accounts, restore other data that will give me access to services like Gmail, etc. Well, in this day and age I don’t think we still need these phone numbers and I think in the near future they will probably die. Well, this might make government’s recent efforts to have our number registered and tagged to our National IDs fruitless, but well technology keeps changing and we all have to adapt at some point.
When did we even start getting phone numbers? The original telephones needed them because switch boards just weren’t great. But, nowadays a smartphone is just more than a number.I don’t know about you, but that phone app is probably on of my least used app. Check your app battery usage, if you want to prove me wrong. I don’t know why I still call it a phone when that’s like the 15th most important function that it can do for me.
Apps are tied to your phone number
Either way, the fact still remains that your identifying phone number is linked to the most important device in your life– your smartphone. Take a step back and think about the things you do on your smartphone, from social media chatting to mobile banking all these are tied to your phone for mostly — authentication. If someone whats to get access to your very public phone number, SIM Swapping scams are a real thing and honestly they are not even that hard to do.
Through a very not difficult process, a scammer can trick their way into a SIM card with your phone number on it which is not cool. Plus, these digits are tied to a single device so if your break of loose that smartphone, you are basically unreachable until you get a new one. Not only that, you can’t authenticate yourself in order to log into anything. Try logging into you bank account or log into twitter on some random computer without having access to a phone. This will be a huge headache unless you’ve set up something other than SMS two-factor authentication. It’s not even just that it’s a security threat. Let me ask you, when is that last time you received a spam call or SMS? We are lucky that our communication regulator fought tooth and nail to eliminate Spam SMS, but some of you will occasionally get them once in a while.
But guess what can’t happen if there are no phone numbers? Spam calls and SMSes! Besides, I kind of feel that we have all moved on from phone numbers anyway. It’s almost overwhelming how many other options we have for communications. UCC’s 2018 telecom report data also shows that people are relying less on calling for communication as mobile internet subscription now standing at 14,360,847 in 2018 up from 13,569,354 reflecting a growth of 5.8%. The total market (this includes both Over the Top OTT and web access) internet penetration now stands at 37%.
Internet takes over
We now have social media apps like twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, tiktok. Messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, kik and Viber. There are even video calling services like Skype and Google Hangouts. It should be noted that some of these apps can do it all (both audio and video calls). But, what all these apps have in common is a great new technology calledTHE INTERNETinstead of a phone number.
So basically all our methods of communication have out grown phone numbers but we can see some like WhatsApp are still relying on on them to a certain extent. Most of these services I have mentioned already use the Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). Google alone has like 50 services relying in this protocol. So why even bother having a phone number when we could just talk through the internet? Well, that’s where the government came and started charging these over the top services with the OTT tax as they also realized its the future of communication.
Technology has got loads better since the days of the switch board and now we communicate over the internet just as much if not more than the traditional mobile networks that our phones are linked up to for calls and SMS. I appreciate that not everyone is connected to the internet giver our 37% internet penetration stats and before you would validly crucify me for bad mouthing phone numbers– Well, am just stating the facts and looking into the crystal ball that is shinning a light into the future of communications without a mobile phone number.
Innovators my 10%
Phone numbers where created for a very specific purpose a long time ago, and they solved a very clear problem. They were great, sure but they are gradually out-growing their usefulness, even if they are forced upon us every time we open a new line. Phone numbers will be a thing of the past and at some point, we will need to let the past die.
The issue is that we clearly don’t have valid alternative to phone numbers just yet, but phone numbers are clearly out dated and we could use something new that won’t make our phone experience worse instead of better. So for innovators out there inspired because of this article? I want my 10%. (insert running emoji).
Do you think phones numbers are on their way out or I am smoking some giant pot of weed and there is some hidden purpose I am missing and I have over looked? Am interested to hear in our comment section below.
