Innovation and Customer Focus

Katrina - the landline - Telecom's Response by Stuart Henshall via Scobleizer

Is it too much to ask Bell South to:
* Let displaced account holders log in and claim their accounts (phone numbers) via the Internet.
* Offer every subscriber in the devastated area a free soft phone with voice mail that replicates their old home number? Softphones that would do the job are available. If the numbers were transferable then Skype could probably scale a solution in just hours rather than weeks.

Good idea. If Bell South doesn't want to be innovative immediately, then regulators should require land line companies to allow Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) companies to provide solutions. To me the key is to allow the land lines to be converted to a solution that will work for customers now. VoIP seems like the best alternative, for all those in temporary lodging.

For such a plan to work companies will have to provide the VoIP service in a very easy to use way. My guess is if this idea is tried, they will make it work.

Another post with more details on this idea: A Brilliant Idea for Helping Katrina Victims.