ENUM: What does it meanWhat does it matter

1. ENUM: What does it mean?What does it matter? TMDenton Vancouver, BC May 4, 2004

2. ENUM: What does it mean? tmdenton.com 2 Introduction Why is ENUM? What is ENUM? What it is not The politics of ENUM Getting a delegation in North America Privacy concerns

3. ENUM: What does it mean? tmdenton.com 3 Telephones and computers There are about 2 billion telephones in the world, fixed and mobile, 1 billion landline and 946 million mobile (March 2003) 157 million computers hosts 588 million personal computers Source �ITU Statistics at a glance� Every computer has an address; because we remember names better, domain names translate into IP addresses Telephone numbers connect telephones.

4. ENUM: What does it mean? tmdenton.com 4 Connecting keyboards to dial pads ENUM is but one way of connecting two vast installed bases of equipment Another way is to replace all existing phones with qwerty keyboards, e.g. Trio 270 VOIP is the coming wave of change ENUM allows the directory system to catch up with the rest of the changes in signal transmission. The older SS7-based look-up system is by-passed.

5. ENUM: What does it mean? tmdenton.com 5 What is ENUM? ENUM is a standard of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which turns telephone numbers into a domain name, for example - 613-237-5335 And allows inquires through the Domain Name System� where a record, called the Naming Authority Pointer record, is kept. The Naming Authority Pointer (NAPTR) record defines what services a person wants out of the system.

6. ENUM: What does it mean? tmdenton.com 6 The core problem How do you find a service on the Internet if all you have is a Telephone Number ?