Some interesting ENUM news has hit the streets …. well a low key hit anyway that ENUM is now a service being offered in Ireland. So everyone with +353 phone numbers, which should be everyone in Ireland both landline, mobile and VoIP can avail of this …. this … well I’m not quite sure what!
I have to investigate this one myself!
As to a general explanation well the ENUM wikipedia entry is always worth a quick glance.
From what I can see ENUM is a proposed international public database (DNS) that links telephone numbers to Internet names and other Internet related destinations and identities. Any party can now interrogate the DNS system with the telephone number of an ENUM subscriber and DNS will return a list of identities and Internet related destinations that are associated with that subscriber; for example their email address, SIP address or web page, thus bridging the old world with new.
ENUM is covered technically at a minimum by the following IETF RFC
IETF RFC3761 The E.164 to Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS) Application (ENUM)
And supported by the following technologies:
RFC 2168 – Resolution of Uniform Resource Identifiers using the Domain Name System
IETF RFC2396 Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax
RFC 2915 – The Naming Authority Pointer (NAPTR) DNS Resource Record
IETF RFC3403 Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS), Part Three: The Domain Name System (DNS) Database
So now the ENUM service should be crystal clear …… well no.
Let’s look to the Irish specific case, what this news story is saying is that the Tier 1 registry for Ireland has been launched, and in effect the 3.5.3.e164.arpa top level zone in DNS is being managed by IENUM Ltd which will provide and maintain the Irish internet community with the necessary infrastructure for ENUM domains within the +353 country code. This is under contract from the Irish telecommunications regulator – ComReg.
So now for my +353 telephone number I can set a list of associated identities such as my email address, SIP address and web page against it!
Nice one
Where do I sign up = MyENUM
How much does it Cost? Okay it’s set at 1 euro a month, but there’s a little sting in the tail . There’s a repeated validation (“revalidation”) every 6 months, which you as a customer is charged for …. hmm that’s a little checkie!
But I’m still considering it, now all I have to worry about is
1) How will people know I’m an ENUM subscriber!
2) Spammers gaining access to all my contact details!
Not happy with this explanation well there’s plenty of FAQ’s out there
US ENUM
UK ENUM
Australia ENUM
Austria ENUM
The UK folks held a workshop in January 2007 and there’s some good material there.
And the impact of all of this?
VoIP for everyone?
Well the list of ENUM Applications are ….. limited