800 is OBSOLETE

IS 800 OBSOLETE? New York, NY February 6, 2004 (ICB TOLL FREE NEWS) ICB got a call from a prestigious DC law firm last month - a research call.

A surprisingly candid lawyer said that they represented the VoIP/ENUM industry and were looking for call center and big customer 800 usage stats in order to construct savings of using VoIP instead of toll free numbers.

(If they are just looking for substantiating information now, what smoke-and-mirrors "savings" have they been touting all this time?)

The mission statement of this lobby is to have large 800 users and call centers cease using toll free numbers altogether. She read it twice, confirmed that we heard her correctly.

This does jive with the ENUM industry's concern that "critical mass" is needed in order for US ENUM to take off. The US Toll Free marketplace provides nothing if not critical mass.

About a week after this phone call, ICB was approached by a senior product manager from a global network services company who has concerns over the viability of his company's 800 vanities (this includes the company name and a number of product generics) relative to ENUM - the word "obsolete" came up in his conversation connected with "800".

Taken back by so severe a statement, we asked "What has lead you to believe that ENUM might make 800 numbers obsolete?" And he replied, verbatim, "... some folks working on ENUM view vanity numbers as a major sticking point in adoption of the standard... they don't know how to get around the problem without cutting corners."

This senior product manager is acutely aware of the value of his company's vanities, and has statistics to justify the value to his company's overseas management, which is his current objective.

His concern is over efforts, if true, on the part of the ENUM industry to make 800 numbers obsolete, but he also noted that it didn't matter if it was true or not. It matters, he said, if management perceives it to be true. And as a senior product manager, he's very concerned.

Since then, with surprising speed, other activities and conversations have come to light that we won't detail here. ICB has projected this trend for a long time, but it is now fleshing out in the conversations, mission statements, observations and concerns of ENUM industry leaders, outside third parties, and toll free industry participants.

As noted above, if the VoIP/ENUM lobby is just looking for substantiating information now, what smoke-and-mirrors "savings" have they been touting all this time?

ICB has written about red herrings, and this fish still smells; there is also a major food-chain shift clinking on this fish hook, and 800 players are not slated to move up.

It would serve the toll free industry (and major marketers) well to take a very close look at what's being delivered in exchange for giving up industry product and position, and information control.

Map out food chain and revenue flow. Demand to see the rules, as well as who would be accountable to whom, and under what jurisdiction.

And then, wait. If there's something so great going on, it'll still be there.

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