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Comment by sowut

1 year ago

phone calls as we know it are going to go the way of the dinosaurs, we need trusted communication systems

3 comments

sowut

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smallerfish  1 year ago

Agreed. Once mobile data coverage is universal (via starlink et al, maybe), it's inevitable that the idea of a phone number will become antiquated. Either whatsapp (or one of its competitors) gets a sufficient monopoly and enables easily portable identities (to allow switching sims), or some other similar platform will come along. It may take a decade or two, but it will happen.

  • carstenhag  1 year ago

    But it's never going to be universal. I felt very scared some weeks ago during a huge march against rightwing extremists in Munich, Germany. There were ~150k people concentrated on a few streets/km.

    Now, how is this relevant? Well, the entire cell network was offline, at least for some providers. At first it wasn't possible to send/receive data. Calls were connecting, but my friend sounded like an alien. Then for one hour, 0 communication was possible.

    So even though the most efficient (I think?) protocol was used, it came to a halt