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An interesting point here actually - number porting was viewed to be core to a telecoms service operator. They have to provide it free of charge as a cost of do
by g_p 6y ago
An interesting point here actually - number porting was viewed to be core to a telecoms service operator. They have to provide it free of charge as a cost of doing business.
Perhaps we need similar for email forwarding - it's clear that the major email platforms (Google, Microsoft) can already handle mail that is simply deferred to another mail server (see partial cloud email transitions).
Perhaps we need the same for email? So a user can have a Gmail address, but receive their email elsewhere. Would still require an authenticated backend to let the user control the end destination email server, but that's the same for number portability. Telecoms operators handle that part, and each provider is regulated. For email it could be a basic login ability for the old account to enable picking the destination mail server.
- YetAnotherNick 6y agoIt's easy to forward from gmail to any address if you want that.
- howlgarnish 6y agoDoes that continue to work if you get locked out though?
- sethammons 6y agoI’ve heard off at least one case where a fella’s wife was locked out and still forwarded email.
- Hallucinaut 6y agoNo. And it wouldn't help rebuild the historical record.
- hedora 6y agoBe sure to disable gmail’s spam detector if you do this. I’ve seen > 30% false positives in a setup like that.
- howlgarnish 6y agoIt's also worth remembering that number portability didn't happen on its own: incumbent telcos fought against it tooth and nail.
- matwood 6y agoOf course they did. Who wouldn't fight for a huge moat around their business? :) Number portability also helped unlocked competition between providers.
- g_p 6y agoAbsolutely. Perhaps an angle for the current ongoing antitrust/anticompetitive behaviour investigations going on in the House? Incumbent telcos fought portability, but in the end it has become a "given". There's no reason OTT services can't also have the same - email is already federated. I could see issues around whether people should be able to "port" their email and still send using their old "From" address (not least SPF/DKIM technical aspects), but the ability to receive seems an obvious one that could be handled. The challenge for OTT services is that absent regulation to force it, if an email provider goes down, there's nobody to step up and continue to provide the relay service.