Sprint Launches StarStar Me To Replace Your Phone Number With Your Name | Hacker News Reader

Sprint Launches StarStar Me To Replace Your Phone Number With Your Name

techcrunch.com

43 pointsneya45 comments

This will be great for the first hundred or so people that order it. After that you'll just end up with SARAH1254. You might as well just have a phone number.

Exactly what I was thinking. Feels like if this takes off, there will be a "land grab" like any single-domain sort of thing. So effectively, this is the equivalent of just exchanging a phone number for a username, and that might not be an improvement. Kinda weird.

Like email addresses? I'm glad I am not 2025551234@gmail.com...

It's better, but is "JON202555" $2.99 a month better?

No, but perhaps something like iMessage is better. No fee and it's also an email address. Seems more useful.

You can use iMessage with email addresses.

... I know. That's why I'm suggesting it's better than Sprint's new thing.

Guys - your should really try CallmyName app. It gives a much more comprehensive solution - it includes phone number, email, address, skype ID, Twitter, FB, picture, etc And most of all it is absolutely FREE...

Thought I'd give this a try to see how it worked. Upon registering and agreeing to the Terms, I received an error page with instructions to call customer service. When I called, the rep had no idea what I was talking about. "Star what?" she said.

After I was transferred to a rep who knew what it was, he said I needed to download the iPhone app for it to work. However, it states throughout the FAQs[1] that the iPhone app isn't yet available. This was further confirmed at the StarStar website[2]. His response: "That's wrong. It's definitely available. Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

I'll be opting out and getting a refund today.

[1] https://sprint.starstar.me/faq

[2] http://www.starstar.me/iphone-app

Most people I know don't bother memorizing phone numbers anymore anyway - so I'm not sure what problem this is solving.

This is entirely true, but our phone contact lists are essentially the internet back in the day that everyone maintained their own /etc/hosts. That is, it would be nice is there was some kind of DNS for phone numbers. I don't think this is the solution, but I understand why they're doing it. (Well, aside from the lock-in aspects.)

I think facebook is the solution most people use now.

I decided against that "solution" when Facebook took it upon themselves to promote their @facebook.com contact information over whatever users had previously setup.

I view my contact list as more of a list of bookmarks rather than a list of entries in hosts. The main difference is that domain names are still uniquely identifying, whereas a name (e.g. first middle last) is not.

  >>What's your number. I'll call you later today.
  > Hold on, I'll give you a missed call.
  >>Is this you? Wait. This one?


  >>What's your number. I'll call you later today.
  >>JACOB

At least in theory

I have no idea why this isn't just your email address. For everyone I want to phone, I likely have this in my "Address book" (Gmail, outlook, whatever) already.

Let me define myemail@gmail.com -> some phone number (aka phone DNS?). Kind of like how Apple does it with iOS Messaging.

If you're concerned about spam, you could in the phone (or in the provider) set up a black/whitelist (allow calls from anyone in my address book).

I was just thinking about this too. If the networks were up to it, we could have multiple addresses. Not just for receiving, but for sending.

A "phone number" is unnecessary.

There is an ITU standard called ENUM [1] that allows uri->phonenumber mapping to be represented in DNS, where a URI could be something like mailto:name@domain.com. I've never heard of it being used though.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number_mapping

Why not just use your email as the "me" part of the service?

What happens to my StarStar number if I cancel it?

If you have a StarStar number and then decide to cancel it, it will stop working at the end of your current billing period. It will then be returned to the pool of "available" numbers.

What happens to my StarStar number if I change carriers? Can I transfer or "port" it?

Your StarStar number cannot be transferred or "ported" from carrier to carrier the way your regular phone number can. When you change carriers your number will be returned to the pool of "available" StarStar numbers.

  https://sprint.starstar.me/faq

Um, no thanks.

Customer lock-in in only four easy steps!

1. Sarah gives out her new number to people she meets

2. They add Star Star SARAH to their address books

3. Two years from now Sarah wants to switch to Verizon

4. But uh-oh! Because this is an add-on it probably isn't subject to the same portability requirements as regular numbers, so now she is stuck with Sprint.

SIP[1] kinda solved this but adoption has been patchy-to-none partially due Skype's proprietary system dominating the voice and video call space. sip:user@gmail.com should call your device for voice and/or video.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol

To be clear: this is a consumer version of StarStar.co http://www.starstar.co/ which has been around for some time.

Like every namespace, it's great if you're early and you get something short and simple, useless or at least annoying/convoluted later on.

I definitely think phone numbers are the IP address of personal communications. Can you imagine if we had to type in http://74.125.224.72/ to hit Google.com? However, I would argue that cell phones have provided a DNS-like solution for the phone number problem. It's not perfect; people can change phone numbers, and we still have to exchange numbers to be able to call each other, but this is somewhat by design. If there was a DNS for phone numbers, which this Sprint StarStar sounds like, it would be too easy for people you don't want calling you to call you (it's already fairly easy... I'm sure Justin Beiber could testify to this). A phone number is like a crappy, public password for people to call a number that may or may not be associated with you.

Just a few thoughts I had based on the last paragraph: the problem is that phone numbers are arbitrary--nothing connects people and the numbers they hold temporarily. However, a DNS system for individual phone numbers is also suboptimal because it allows everyone access to everyone. What about a password protected DNS system? Everyone gets a phone number/ip address and is able to password protect access to it? Snowball with me here people.

> A phone number is like a crappy, public password for people to call a number that may or may not be associated with you.

A phone number is just an address. That most numbers don't have ingress filtering due to standard operating procedure (and our public commons being owned by private ad-spewing corporations) doesn't change this fact.

You can try all you want to call my GV number, it will route all callers to voicemail except for whitelested numbers.

There is exactly such a "DNS" that is working WW (not just on one network...) - look at the CallmyName application - registration there is absolutely free!

This isn't really solving a problem. Phone numbers are already unique, so why replace with another unique based system that has a one to one correspondence?

I'd really like to see something like DNS. You can register a "phone number" or "phone name", upon calling something, it sends a lookup to your phone provider, which then provides a lookup to whatever server houses the data for said name which resolves a unique name or series of characters (not limited to alphanumeric increasing combinations) that responds with data that the phone can digest and create an active connection. Imagine being in control of your own data, who can call you, what sort of data a subscriber can obtain when calling you, etc. Sort of an app.net for your own contact info.

For anyone with a name that's prone to mis-spellings, this service doesn't seem like such a great idea.

See this is a temporary solution and shows off all the problems with a global routing database.

If I could dial sarah and it knew that I was referring to my Sarah, that would be great, but another individual identifier of global significance isn't helpful.

What sprint needs are truly separate routing databases for each client. If I dial 101 on my cellphone, I want it to ring my dad; why isn't this possible today? The answer is that it is, but it's too much of a headache for existing equipment within core carrier networks.

In short, bring on the real unified communications, woe to the impostors.

"If I dial 101 on my cellphone, I want it to ring my dad; why isn't this possible today?"

Is this more useful than ringing "Dad" from your cellphone, which is already possible?

In some capacities, yes.

I meant generically, being able to remove identity from phone numbers. I want to call someone, however I want to call them, and reach them because the network I'm a part of already has enough information to divine who I'm trying to talk to.

This isn't fantasy, you could realistically do this right now with all of the signals we have online about who people are. It's just that no one sees value in aggregated routing databases, only in adding additional routing databases, like star star me.

Calling 'dad' and calling '101' are just placeholders for the real intention, reaching the person who is your father. However I want to get ahold of them should be reasonable and possible to do with today's technology.

Not trying to be combative, only trying to clarify my point :).

The ability to have two (or more) accounts per number might be good for separating business/personal uses on one device if they can track it that way. The limitation of (generally) one phone number per device is restrictive.

Yes, I know you can work around this a bit w/Google Voice and such, but I would prefer my phone to act more like an email client where I can send/receive from multiple accounts seamlessly.

Why the heck should I pay $36/yr for a service that can work only on Sprint's network when you can register your call name for FREE with a great application like CallmyName. Me and most of my friends have call-names with CallmyName and it works superbly well. I highly recommended to try it and get you call name ASAP....

So, trying this, it doesn't seem to work for Text messages, at least across carriers.

It does work for Phone calls, however.

Out of curiosity, I checked, and the major services that you might want to run over a phone - FLOWERS, PIZZA, etc, seem to be taken.

Text doesn't work sprint-to-sprint, either.

For me the coolest feature is the "reply with contact info". You meet someone new and before parting, they ask for your contact info -- instead of standing around as they type in your cell or email, you just say "call MYNAME to get my info."

That's what business cards are for.

I'm assuming that this only works if both parties have Sprint? It seems pretty pointless if so, even without taking the namespace collisions into account.

Also: who remembers phone numbers nowadays? I already have a phone that does that for me.

"Calls may be made to StarStar numbers within the United States from any Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile or AT&T mobile phone." from their official report.

"GOOGLE (466453) is in use." I wonder how many squatters are already holding these hostage. PS, I wouldn't have gone through with it.

i think email tried this theory already, people still dont memorize everyone's email address. Auto-complete is what we all live by, seriously, this wont last.

What we really need is straight up DNS for phones.

This will make it really easy to spam people too

It's already quite easy to spam people via their phone number. Just iterate through a block of mobile numbers.

People still dial and remember numbers?

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