VoIP and ENUM

Breko, Germany's Association of facility based carriers, felt inclined ( German / Google translation) to voice their concern regarding possbile exceptions for VoIP services to provide access to emergency service capabilities. Their fairly transparent tactic has prompted even international feedback such as the comments from Richard Stastny and Jeff Pulver.

What at first look appears to be a potentail shop stopper for most players is fortunately a minor issue. Unlike in the U.S. there is a single incumbent in Germany (Deutsche Telekom) and routing to all PSAPs for all emergency numbers (110 and 112) is part of the standard interconnection agreement. Even the correct routing table with some 10,000+ routing entries is provided by Deutsche Telekom. Based on this interconnection service we at sigpate have already eastablish full routing to emergency services. In the absence of obligations for mobile operatators even Breko is not going so far to require a mechanism to automatically detect a subscriber's location.

This naturally leads to the question where the big issues then lie. Two issues really. First, in the absence of a noticable marketshare for both cable companies and alternative DSL providers naked-DSL is badly needed. Second, in the light of the recent announcements from two 3G networks (Eplus and Vodafone) to block VoIP services legally binding guidelines for "open access" aka "unfiltered network access" need to be implemented.

And again, we see Breko do what they feel inclined to do - they remain silent.