Re: Long-term viability: telephone numbers as aliases

[johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine)]

>> Current naming conventions probably cannot be sustained...
>> Most individuals/organizations already have unique identifiers
>> (telephone numbers) ...

There already is a telephone number domain called tpc.int.  Phone
numbers such as:

	+1 802 555 2368

are represented by reversing the number and making each digit a component:

	8.6.3.2.5.5.5.2.0.8.1.tpc.int.

It's ugly, but it has the important property that sub-domains can be
created starting at any digit, just like the real phone system does.
This scheme was used for an e-mail to fax delivery experiment and it
wasn't all that successful, partly because of the ugly addresses and
partly because the experiment, having no budget, depended on volunteer
sites to do the actual faxing.  It worked technically, each delivery
site could sign up for the part of the number space that was a local
call to them.

In any event, if anyone wants phone number based domain addresses,
here they are.  Personally, I don't want them, partly because they're
so ugly, but mainly because I greatly value the feature that my domain
addresses didn't change when I moved, even though all of my phone
numbers did (other than one old number that I have forwarded at extra
cost.)





-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869
johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - MIT econ prof