On Message with Ben Gross
Managing Multiple Phone Numbers on Mobile Phones
Multiple email addresses and instant messenger usernames are a fact of modern life. Most email clients will happily let you configure sending and receiving for multiple email address, if you are willing and able to put the time into configuring them. In addition, multiprotocol instant messenger clients, such as Trillian created by Cerulean Studios (www.ceruleanstudios.com), the freeware GAIM (www.gaim.sourceforge.net), Web-based Meebo (www.meebo.com) and the Mac OS X freeware Adium (www.adiumx.com), make it possible to aggregate multiple IM services into a single interface with a single buddy list.
Multiple phone numbers are a fact of modern life, as well. These numbers include home numbers, work numbers, mobile numbers, conference rooms, etc. Until recently there were far fewer options for managing multiple phone numbers than for multiple email addresses. People could use call forwarding to funnel all calls to a single number, and some Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) phones offer the ability to aggregate multiple Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) lines and unified messaging systems in corporations. Unfortunately, these solutions offer little in the way of flexibility for managing numbers from disparate sources including public switched telephone network (PSTN), mobile, institutional Private Branch eXchange (PBX) systems. One notable exception is Wildfire, an early pre-VoIP speech recognition-based service that acted like a personal assistant that provided call screening and routing.
New Services
As mobile phones begin to replace landlines, mobile phone numbers have become pervasive, as well as valuable, since they typically offer immediate and direct contact to the called party. Several new services are beginning to provide new types of functionality for managing phone numbers from a mobile phone. These services include TalkPlus (www.talkplus.com) Jangl, Inc. (www.jangl.com), and MINO Wireless USA, Inc. (www.mino wireless.com). Until now, many VoIP providers simply offered the benefit of cheaper calling rates and cheaper packaging of existing services, such as conference calling, three way calling, and voicemail. However, these new categories of services are starting to offer management functionality that is compelling beyond price. MINO Wireless and Jangle are VoIP-based while TalkPlus uses the PSTN for calls, but will eventually allow interconnection via SIP.
At a base level, these services provide the ability to give separate phone numbers to different groups of people or to an individual. TalkPlus and Jangl explicitly offer the ability to segment groups by phone number and control access on the basis of a phone number. For example, you can mark the numbers "do not disturb" to prevent your phone from ringing or you can block callers entirely.
Each of these services focuses on a different market segment, but all offer additional management functionality. TalkPlus and Jangl both offer the ability to provide alternate phone numbers that can be managed independently, while MINO's primary business model is providing low cost international calling. In addition the service will allow you to set the outbound caller ID number on the fly. TalkPlus and Jangle require verification before allowing an outbound called ID change, while MINO Wireless does not. Both TalkPlus and Jangl can provide disposable phone numbers.
Increased Control
There are numerous situations where people may want to call from a mobile number, but do not want to provide that number to the called party for reasons of privacy, security, continuity, etc. For example, a lawyer might wish to call a client from the road, but provide the client with the office number. That way, if the client returns the call, he or she will reach the office or an answering service, rather than cell phone voicemail. In addition the lawyer can give out a separate phone number for individual clients or groups of clients in order to have more flexibility for call management and billing.
A doctor might wish to call a patient while away from the office, but does not want the patient to have her personal cell phone number. Since Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations require that test results not be left on voicemail, the doctor might also wish the caller ID to point to the primary office number. In so doing, the patient can be assured to reach someone with access to his health records, when he returns the call. Similarly, an on call tech support person might wish to call a client while on the road, but would not wish the client to be able to contact him directly and so would provide the main help desk number on their caller ID. This way the client could be assured that someone would answer her call, without disrupting the technician's schedule.
Privacy and Security
Dating is another large market for these services. Both TalkPlus and Jangl actively promote to this segment. Jangl has partnered with Match.com for this purpose. People can use separate phone numbers for reasons of privacy and security to give to dates. TalkPlus provides the most control as you can have some numbers that ring through, some that go straight to voicemail and others that receive a "no longer in service" message.
Of course, all new technologies must provide a bit of pain and suffering to early adopters, so they feel that they've earned their status. These services are no exception. In the case of TalkPlus and MINO Wireless, users need to determine if they have a compatible phone and download an application onto their phone or they must use a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-based interface. In the case of Jangl, users must first go through a Web interface (or send a text message) to generate an introduction that will create the private phone number to connect the two parties. In many ways, TalkPlus is the easiest to set up. However, it adds additional complexity as well. A typical interaction goes like this: you need to select the number to dial from with the TalkPlus application or WAP interface, agree to dial the number, then it selects the appropriate local TalkPlus number and then you call that. Whew! Just when you thought the days of complicated phone card dialing were long past.
Still, despite any potential hassles, each of these services offer a glimpse of a new category of functionality for managing multiple phone numbers by letting us control how we present our calling numbers, determine who may contact us and when. BG/TMP