Re: [nznog] enum

enum is a method of matching PSTN numbers to the DNS space. you have to register those domains, verify those domains in regular intervals, pay those domains ... people in those countries that have working enum registries do not bother going through that hassle for no obvious benefit. the registration numbers are not significant. VOIP works perfectly without enum and i see no obvious benefit in pushing numbers in DNS when we invented DNS to make those numbers memorable ... probably i miss something though lenz On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 8:52 AM, Scott Howard wrote:

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 7:19 AM, Joe Abley wrote:

...

It does seem possible, however, that in this case the ship has sailed on enum. I've never seen a device marketed to users directly which uses enum, for example, but I do see them today using skype.

IMHO, enum should never become an end-user thing. Whilst that's not to say that end-user devices may not support it in the future, it make far more sense when used as a provider (VOIP or otherwise) backend in order to route calls over the best communications channel.

On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 11:16 AM, Blair Harrison wrote:

...

I really like the innovation of .tel - http://www.telnic.org/faq.html - seems a great idea to me.

.tel is just yet another first-in-best-dressed top-level domain. Sure, if I manage to score scotthoward.tel then it's going to make me easy to find, but what about the thousands of other Scott Howards out there?

...

It certainly does seem that skype has captured the vast majority of voip end users, so I don't think there's much point trying to recapture them with something else. They just won't understand if it's harder than a couple of clicks.

So it needs to be made simple. Skype is NOT the answer to VOIP in any form as far as I'm concerned. It uses a proprietary protocol, and then routes your traffic via the systems of other Skype users (and of course thus also routes other peoples traffic via your system). Whilst this makes sense for P2P file transfer, it doesn't make any sense for comms.

VOIP/SIP is taking off in many different ways in many countries - and the real win comes when it _is_ transparent to the end user. Vonage in the US and and Engine/MyNetFone in Australia are examples of companies that are doing this, and in fact Vonage don't even mention the word "VOIP" on their TV ads - it's just "Phone Calls over your Broadband connection". Add in all the companies that are starting to deply the VOIP capabilities that already exist in their phone systems, plus all of the telco's who are using VOIP behind the scenes (eg, Gizmo5 allows you to reach around 11% of all US phone numbers for free via VOIP) and you're starting to get a lot of worldwide SIP users!

Eventually something is going to be needed to allow for optimal routing between the multitude of VOIP providers - be that enum or something else...

Scott.

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