Re: [wg-c] Choosing the intial testbed

[david@aminal.com]

On Wed, Mar 22, 2000 at 06:54:28PM -0400, John Charles Broomfield wrote:
> 
> > What do you do if your ISP gets flaky?
> 
> If you are running with your own domain-name, the fact that your ISP goes
> flaky is a bother, but you change and its settled transparently.
> 
> > What do you do if your business has to move?
> 
> Mail forwarding? 
> 
> > What do you do if your telephone number has to
> > change? 
> 
> Aha... Here is where it gets interesting. I don't know if you have noticed
> the increasing trend worldwide where governments or telco oversight
> institutions are obligating telcos to maintain their customers numbers even
> when they migrate to different telcos (I imagine that for telcos, telephone
> numbers are starting to be like domain names).
> Today if you have an imposed telephone change it's bad luck and in many
> cases very costly to business which is precisely why governments are forcing
> telcos to co-operate in this way. Can't see why the same protection
> shouldn't be afforded to the internet.
> 
> Yours, John Broomfield.

Ah. See, I -like- being smarter than my competition, I don't want to protect
them, or make their life easier than it need be.

If some business is dim enough to print up two years of business cards and
stationary that have to be thrown away if an ephemeral business charateristic
changes, well, better luck next time.

And yes, living and working in Chicago means many area code and phone number
changes in recent years, it's an annoyance, but all in all a comparatively 
minor one. Here, phone number portability only applies when you change
providers, not locations. And area code changes are a constant factor.

Jeez, according to this logic we should still be using our Telex number.

Yes, and when we move the Post Office should forward our mail forever - 
They should know that even though it says Illinois on the envelope that
it really means Kansas :-)

There is a bit of philosophical difference here on where the responsibility
lies as far as maintaining contact between business (or government) and
customers.

It's not the customers job to keep track of us.

It's not governments job to keep communications channels open between us
and customers.

It's -our- (a businesses) job to keep track of our customers, and to
make sure that they know how to reach us when they need to.

As far as friends and family go, I figure if I really want to be in contact
with them, I'll let them know if I move, whether it be physically or 
electronically.

I'll stop now before I get even further into seminar mode about change being
opportunity, yadda yadda yadda.

David Schutt