VoIP and ENUM

TelecomDirect News features an acticle: Telephony Interoperability a Growing Trend
citing Keith Cambron, president and CEO, SBC Laboratories:

"ENUM technology will play a vital role in the continued growth and development of VoIP. It is critically important that ENUM technology is developed in a consistent, standards-based manner"

The article is triggered by VeriSign's announcement last month of a new IP Connect services suite that's designed to help carriers interlink enterprise VoIP networks and also by AT&T, MCI, SBC Laboratories, Sprint, Verizon and Internet domain registrar Go Daddy joining together to form ENUM LCC targeting the consumer end of the interoperability market. ENUM LLC aims to promote Electronic Numbering (ENUM) protocol technology in North America, including the U.S., Canada and Caribbean nations. ENUM LLC hopes to build a commercial implementation that will provide a single, public system for nations within the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) that choose to participate.

"Because ENUM technology translates telephone numbers into domain names, it will make a wide range of Internet and information services like VoIP, email, and fax services, available to anyone with a telephone or any number of hand-held devices," says Bob Parsons, president of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Go Daddy

The new technology also promises to enhance the usability of VoIP networks. Today, most VoIP users can utilize fully IP-based communications only in situations where the call recipient is a customer of the same VoIP provider or platform. That's because all other calls must transition back and forth from the public switched telephone network, with its inherent technology limitations. ENUM technology could potentially enable VoIP users from multiple platforms to communicate over IP connections from end to end.

"ENUM LLC's chances for success hinge on how many carriers, domain registrars, hardware and software vendors and other relevant organizations ultimately decide to participate in its plan. At this stage, only one thing is certain: ENUM LLC's complex, ambitious plan will take years to unfold", TelecomDirect News closes.

Not necessarily, if the US does not start from scratch, but bites the bullet and takes into consideration what has already achieved regarding ENUM in other parts of the world ;-)