Why can’t you make a phone call (or send an SMS) from an iPad?

So why can't you do the above, Why can’t you make a phone call (or send an SMS) from an iPad?

More to the point why couldn’t this all be amalgamated into one phone bill (with bolt on users) just like adding mailboxes, and WHY do we actually need phone numbers? Do your friends call you 01533 654675? No, we all have email addresses, or Facebook names.

Anyone (as old as me) remember when phones had “ABC” “DEF” etc. on the numbers on the dial so you could do you STD dialling via the “Name” of the exchange? So why can’t we go to something similar? You type in “google” and it takes you to www.google.co.uk or “BBC news”, so we know that the internet is clever enough to use “names” when we all know it uses IP Addresses. So why not “Map” your email address (or dare I suggest Facebook name” ) to your Mobile phone via your BT/TalkTalk account.

So then when you want to call someone you just type in their “Name”.

Wow. This could be a true innovation. What do I know though – lets check in 10years time.

I am old enough to remember in the 80's when we still had 405 lines TV there was a very expensive thing called Prestel which gave your TV (very expensive) access to a "teletext" like service via a special phone connection (ISDN then), that was Interactive! Whoooo! At the time I predicted "everybody will one day be able to communicate to the world via their TV and receive TV on demand from the phone line" - was I right?