It also underscores why closed protocol, single vendor solutions are not the greatest either.
If you were using a vendor neutral protocol, like SIP or IAX, you would at LEAST still be able to make outbound calls, as it's trivial to use multiple providers. If you have multiple inbound numbers at multiple providers, then you would still be reachable too. It would help to toss the ancient phone number system and use direct VoIP addressing rather than a phone number (SIP:biff.jones@example.com or some such thing.)
The problem is exactly what you say - the technology in general is young. It just doesn't have the redundancies designed into it that are really needed, yet is still tied to legacy systems.
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