We Don't Care, We're the Phone Company

An Open Source project called OpenMoko is busy developing a software platform for smartphones, using free software. I'm not placing any bets on an open phone platform changing the world of Telkom/Vodacom/MTN, but here's a simple question:

If it's possible for you to have multiple email addresses that you can use on multiple computers, why not the same with cellphones? Why shouldn't you have multiple phone numbers on one phone? Maybe one personal, and one business. Filter out business calls if you're having some family time.It seems to me that cellphone technology is deliberately incapacitated to prevent phone companies losing customers.

Cellphone companies seem to be positioned today where AOL and CompuServe were in the old pre-WWW days. I'm not sure this is going to change, considering the mess of licensing and regulation of wireless spectrum in most countries.

Click here for a few dozen more funky OpenMoko videos.