Phone Numbers Are not Going to Die At least for 20 Years

Nikhyl Singhal has written a guest post in Techcrunch: Phone Numbers Are Dead, They Just Don’t Know It Yet

There, Nikhyl has mainly predicted that Facebook, Google (Gmail Phone) and Skype would replace phone numbers in near future. His basic assumption is that Facebook has a lot of facilities when it comes to traditional phone numbers provided by telecom operators.

The first thing that cannot be ignored is the matter that people still consider Facebook or Gmail or Skype something extra to their mobile phone numbers. This attitude is not going to die down that easily for basically one reason.

The main problem is that an user needs a smart phone and very good internet connection if he wants to be connected with Facebook, Gmail or Skype. Not only smart phones are expensive but also wireless Internet is not cheap either. This price issue means that most people still cannot afford a smart phone even in USA.

Of course, within perhaps 5 years, most people will own smart phones. However, for the other countries, especially in Asia and Africa, it will take many years. So, it will take really a long time for the phone numbers to die.