Give the evacuees their old phone numbers

TechBlog blogged The ideas for using technology to help those displaced by Hurricane Katrina are flowing in, and this is one of the best I've seen yet: release the phones numbers in the New Orleans area and let evacuees reclaim them as Voice over IP service, or VoIP.

It comes from Stuart Henshall over at Skype Journal. Skype, of course, is the popular, PC-based VoIP service.

Henshall says it would work this way: Is it too much to ask Bell South to:

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• Let displaced account holders log in and claim their accounts (phone numbers) via the Internet. What's happening at the Astrodome?
• Offer every subscriber in the devastated area a free soft phone with voice mail that replicates their old home number? Softphones that would do the job are available. If the numbers were transferable then Skype could probably scale a solution in just hours rather than weeks.
• Drop the fee until the home line is up and running again?
• Enable voice messages via e-mail if required.
• Enable call forwarding if appropriate.
• Provide copies of old phone bills? Help people reconnect with old friends, families, schools, employers, banks.

As is the case with most VoIP services, you can really use the number anywhere -- you're not tied to geography. If this was done, finding someone would be a simple matter of calling his or her last known phone number.

(Spotted on the Scobleizer.)

I agree, this is a fantastic idea