I've been of the opinion that emails really needs to have a form of "Local Number Portability" (LNP) akin to phone numbers. Sadly, the traditional way of handl

I've been of the opinion that emails really needs to have a form of "Local Number Portability" (LNP) akin to phone numbers. Sadly, the traditional way of handling this is via forwarding, which isn't really how LNP works. It should really be a form of redirect at the SMTP stage where the sending mail server is redirected to another email address for delivery. As I run an ISP / non-dominant carrier, this is a barrier to competition in the real world. Potential customers that made the decision of using an email address provided by the incumbent in my area often refuse to change providers for fear of losing contact with people or customers that have only known the one email address for decades.