Eh, depends. I wouldn’t trust Vodafone to give me the time of day, personally [1].
In any case, neither Big Tech nor Big Telco are my favorite candidates to be the guardian of my digital identity.
[1] Had them for years in an apartment where they have a local monopoly; speeds of 0.3 Mbit and latencies of 15 seconds – yes, 15000 milliseconds – during the pandemic were not unusual. The upgrade of the local node is scheduled for late 2024.
> In my country there are significant consumer protections around mobile phones.
That's a good point – we urgently need those same protections for e.g. things like email addresses or Google accounts.
But, yes, I do know people that are unable to port out their phone number: Sometimes it's a line on a contract in somebody else's name (minors, spouses etc.), sometimes it's a prepaid card not properly registered (although that's getting less common with the EU mandate to verify everybody's identity before activation).
Neither a phone number nor a Gmail address/Google/Facebook/... account is a good anchor of trust for digital identities.
In any case, neither Big Tech nor Big Telco are my favorite candidates to be the guardian of my digital identity.
[1] Had them for years in an apartment where they have a local monopoly; speeds of 0.3 Mbit and latencies of 15 seconds – yes, 15000 milliseconds – during the pandemic were not unusual. The upgrade of the local node is scheduled for late 2024.