] Starting Nov. 24, consumers will be able to switch their
] home telephone numbers to their mobile phones, the
] Federal Communications Commission ruled yesterday. The
] order sets the stage for a scramble by traditional phone
] companies seeking to keep their customers as they face
] fierce competition from cellular providers and a growing
] threat from Internet-based phone services.

While this is pro-consumer, I think its the wrong answer from a technical standpoint. Once again, if we had a directory service above the phone network that every telephone terminal could access, we wouldn't need to remember numeric addresses -- and furthermore, the physical network targets of the logical addresses could be very dynamic.

There was a system -- I want to say at Lucent in Cambridge -- where the users had RFID tags and the network followed them; your calls are routed to whatever terminal you happen to be sitting next to, currently.

F.C.C. Backs Phone Number Portability