I received some feedback when I floated my previous post on Katrina earlier today. So being naive I sent the following response which outlines what appears possible to me.

Thank you for the FCC perspective. However if I understand correctly you can’t transfer it to a VoIP provider like Vonage or Skype. Thus the regulations aren't going to help much at all. This group is still tied into the tyranny of the fixed line. People need their numbers where access may be difficult and messages can be left.

I was approaching it from the following point of view…

• Minimal infrastructure. Minimal set up and training.
• Implementation in hours rather than days or months
• Put in the Astrodome an Internet café along with headsets.
• Provide broadband and WiFi
• Enable Skype on those PC’s / phone handsets. Word would spread rapidly.
• Enable account holders to open a Skype account and assign their home number to it (SkypeIn)
• They would be enabled with free voice mail at the same time.
• Using the latest version they could call forward if required to a mobile number (cost two cents per minute) or to another Skype account – buddy for free, thus establishing a more online point of contact.
• It costs nothing to open accounts.
• Presence would enable them to create support groups and networks quickly amongst neighbors.
• Bell South could probably arrange to keep ownership of the numbers if they wish, e.g. loan them to a service.
• There is no need for a switchboard; it does require some bandwidth….

Rather than ponder the outcome, it should be done for humanitarian reasons. The old system doesn't have an emergency response that is acceptable any more.

1) Let displaced account holders log in and claim their accounts (phone numbers) via the Internet. What's happening at the Astrodome?

I don't know of that happening. However, the FCC did actually, amazingly, do something right this time. They issued an emergency waiver of the number portability regulations. It is now allowable to port a number to a different geographic rate center. Under the actual rules, you can port your number to a different carrier, but its rate center assignment is fixed (modulo FX lines, which are controversial). Under the waiver, NO and other impact-area numbers can ring elsewhere. This will mostly be used by businesses, I suspect, but perhaps some people can get this too, once they settle into new digs.

It is somewhat harder, but not impossible, to point multiple phone numbers at a single phone. This would require, I think, two steps, one to port the number to an operative switch, and a second to Remote Call Forward it to a target number. A given phone can't, alas, have very many numbers on it (a few, actually), and in a place like the Astrodome, it might make sense to have a sort of switchboard set up to answer messages for lots of ported numbers.

Or will they:
1) just keep the bills running
2) not use their imaginations.

I don't know if BellSouth will do so, but the FCC's authorization of porting means that, at least in theory, other carriers can step into the breach.