Stuart Henshall has an idea to use virtual numbers during a crisis like the one brought on by Katrina. Tom Evslin has some thoughts on why this is a good idea and wonders what’s taking so long.
I tend to agree with both. Actually, if I were Sprint or Verizon I’d be loading up the area with EvDO cards and a bunch of cheap laptops with processors, then installing a softclient like XTEN’s EyeBeam. By getting Bell South to virtualize the lines and then have them forwarded to a SIP account with voice mail, the affected people would get their messages and be able to call back. The calls can go IP or even better, with EvDO via the voice side of the cards.
A more easily implemented idea is to give all the people in shelters a cell phone with Pay as You Go service for outbound at cheap rates, and free 30 day incoming calls where no minutes are used.
A third idea is to build WiFi network at the shelter and give out WiFi phones. Sure they are expensive but I was the marketing director at UTStarcom or Zyxel I’d find a way to make the most news and noise around it. Add a SIP address, map that to a PSTN and voila instant phone service in a hot spot environment.
These ideas are too easy to come up with but harder to implement. I’m willing to work with Tom and Stuart and anyone else to help make this happen.