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Phone Number Suffix

  (+5, -1)
(+5, -1)
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My idea comes from the hassle of phone numbers constantly being recycled and therefore receiving wrong numbers and dialing wrong numbers on occasion. The idea is to append my phone number with the digits that spell my name on the standard phone keypad, xxx-xxx-xxxx-3296 (FAWN). So if I switch my number and someone else gets it, they wouldn't get unsolicited calls from my friends that haven't called for a while because they would have their own suffix for their name and the calls wouldn't go through unless their name was appended to the number. Sorry if the description is a little flimsy, but if you get the idea, let me know what you think.
fawn82, Jun 15 2010

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       What if your number is transferred to someone called "Ebzo"?
hippo, Jun 15 2010
  

       Well, I guess that's at least the second unfortunate thing to happen to Ebzo.
rcarty, Jun 15 2010
  

       Why not just increase phone number lengths by 4 digits and increase recycling times?
DMc, Jun 15 2010
  

       Or, just have one great big phone-number that everyone uses at once?
zen_tom, Jun 15 2010
  

       You could easily use the ISDN subaddress fields for this...
prufrax, Jun 15 2010
  

       Is there something akin to a Mac-Address on a (cell)phone? And if so, are there any sneaky ways to send traffic to a known address? And, same question on the mac-address level - is there a way to create a package that might be transmitted over tcp/ip that could be picked-up/routed according to a mac-address signature? (I think the answer to both those questions is going to be no, but it might be cool if it wasn't)
zen_tom, Jun 15 2010
  

       Subnet masking for phones.
wagster, Jun 15 2010
  

       Very like the userid convention exemplified by "fawn82" but putting the letters *after* the numbers makes it implementable for 'phones, within the existing system (using [bigsleep]'s technique). [+]
mouseposture, Jun 16 2010
  

       Such a system would be nearly perfect for Ebzo, though. If it weren't for Fawn, it would be perfect. Way to go, Fawn.
bungston, Jun 16 2010
  

       [bungston] Only a problem for ebzo82, though. No problem for all the other ebzoi.
mouseposture, Jun 16 2010
  

       //Is there something akin to a Mac-Address on a (cell)phone?// Yes, but it is cell/micro-cell/nano-cell dependent as that is the unique routing device. This is what the prosecution use to place you near the scene of an alleged crime if you were making a call. (and even if you were not, in some cases). In fact, you will have a TX-RX "active mac" and several "inactive mac"s, as there are probably several transceivers carrying your signal for a while until central drops some on redundancy.   

       So on top of your SIM (eg user)and your Device Identification (IMEI) (eg IP address) there is a number to identify the transceiver (router) in communication with your device (eg MAC address).
4whom, Jun 17 2010
  
      
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