[lug] OT curious about information infrastructure of telephone number portability

[Paul E Condon]

I'm curious about the infrastructure of telephone number portability.
It seems to me that for the phone number to work with the new service
provider there will have to be some way of dynamically routing each
call from the old service provider to the new service provider. And,
with roaming, from any service provider to any other telephone service
provider. How is this to be done? Are there businesses that sell this
service to the telephone companies? Is there an industry association
that provides this service? How?

The reason I'm asking is that I see an interesting social issue that I
have not seen discussed. Can the database be expanded to become a
system of universal personal identification? Is this a 'good' or a
'bad' thing? Etc.

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon at peakpeak.com