When will telephone land line change to IP addresses instead of numbers?

Answer 1

They're not. Not everyone has static IP addresses nor would they all be willing to pay extra for it. Heck, my grandmother won't even pay for touch tone service. What if you want more than one phone number/line in your house? Are you going to have to get another static IP for each phone? We have four cell phones in our household. Individual static IP's for each of them? There are 4.3 billion combinations of IP addresses possible from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. There are 10 billion numbers from 000-000-0000 to 999-999-9999. Of course not all of them are usable, but the same goes for IP addresses. The hardest part would be getting people to change. Good luck with that! Just switching people's area codes screws everyone up for years and years.

Answer 2

...well, wireless companies are moving in this direction, I believe. The IP's are not static, they are dynamic, assigned by the service provider. The service provider (in theory, none of this is happening yet) holds a block of IPs, and when a request is made to call your phone, they pick an IP and temporarily assign it to you. The call then travels over that IP. There are many reasons for doing this, most of them billing and reporting-related.

If you're asking, "when will I have to memorize an IP address instead of a phone number?", the answer is probably never. It's all done on the back end without any consumer interaction.

Answer 3

I do not think this will ever happen. IP addresses change every now and then - even with cable internet. VOIP phones are the future in my opinion (voip cell phones to be exact) - and they still use telephone numbedrs. In the future - numbers will become a thing of the past and we'll be identified by name (Calling Jack or Mom or Dad) - it already is this way with cellular phone books - when someone calls it displays their name instead of their phone number. Names and pictures are a lot easier to remember than a long telephone number.