Just my opinion as I size up the future of the phone.
Remember the Federal “Do Not Call” list? It was started to help land-line users block pesky aluminum siding sales calls. The promise of the list never kept up with the rapid growth in the use of cell phones. As cell phone use continues to grow we have to think about a near future that may put a damper on the ability of businesses to legitimately do business by phone.
Smartphones have helped users to partially conquer SPAM calls by using call-blocking functions in lieu of the government’s weak “Do Not Call” list. But what happens when perhaps millions of numbers are blocked from our phones?
- How will you know if your new telephone number hasn’t been blacklisted on millions of smartphones because of prior abuse?
- If abusive phone numbers are identified and retired from use, how will the phone companies create new phone numbers?
No one can predict the future but we may see what’s coming our as a result of the regular phone SPAMMING that occurs. Phone companies have answered past grow the same response– the addition of more area codes to create more phone numbers.
There doesn’t seem to be an appetite for stopping phone SPAM and there’s the prospect on the horizon that even our nextdoor-neighbors may all share different area codes. Phone SPAM could be the harbinger of the end of the phone call as we know it and perhaps the end of even renaming the smartphone to something very un-phone-y.
