ENUM: What does it meanWhat does it matter

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ENUM What does it mean?What does it matter?

• TMDenton Vancouver, BC May 4, 2004

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Introduction

• Why is ENUM?
• What is ENUM?
• What it is not
• The politics of ENUM
• Getting a delegation in North America
• Privacy concerns

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The core problem

• How do you find a service on the Internet if all
  you have is a Telephone Number ?

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ENUM

• The ENUM system allows the domain name system to
  transform (map) telephone numbers into domain
  names.
• Telephone numbers are referred to as E164
  numbers, after the ITU standard which specifies
  them.
• The resulting name is looked up in the DNS
  (domain name system).
• The look-up returns a set of records referred to
  as Naming Authority Pointer (NAPTR) records.
• The NAPTR records define the services the person
  has entered into the record.

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The Domain Name System

• The Domain Name System, or DNS, is designed to
  ensure that each Internet address is globally
  unique and corresponds to a distinct numeric
  value.
• The system resolves a domain name, such as
  www.cira.ca, into a unique "IP address" -- a
  numerical name containing four blocks of up to
  three digits each (such as 198.41.0.52), which
  points to a single location on the Internet.
• The DNS was designed primarily as a mnemonic
  device to help people remember the addresses of
  Web pages more easily.

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The Domain Name System 2

• The DNS system consists of three components
• DNS data (called resource records),
• servers (called name servers), and
• Internet protocols for fetching data from the
  servers
• The billions of resource records in the DNS are
  split into millions of files called zones. Zones
  are kept on authoritative servers distributed all
  over the Internet.
• The creation and management of domain names is
  worked out in the Internet Corporation for
  Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

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What ENUM is and is not

• ENUM is not
• A directory, or a change in telephone numbering
• A search service
• A transport service
• A telephony service or a voice encoding protocol
• ENUM is
• A partial mapping of e.164 numbers to domain
  names, whose record defines a set of services.
• ENUMs goal is that one party should be able to
  look up information in the DNS, which another
  party has stored in the DNS.

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ENUMs potential

• ENUM offers Internet-based users to select from a
  range of services available for communicating
  with another person when all he knows is a
  telephone number.
• Spans both the legacy telephone and new VOIP
  networks
• Telephone number becomes the only thing to
  remember
• Supports all dialling plans
• simplifies call routing and number portability
  for phone companies
• One number for life?

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What is the problem to be solved?
ENUM Solves the problem of cross domain or
Inter-Enterprise call-capture. 80 or more of
Enterprise calls can go all IP. Toll Calls are a
110 Billion revenue stream. 987 per Business
line per year in toll charges (source FCC)
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The Politics of ENUM

• The Internet Engineering Task Force developed
  ENUM as a standard (formerly RFC 2916, now RFC
  3761) www.ietf.org
• The ITU has control over the use of telephone
  numbers, and this control is delegated to
  national administrations. Using telephone numbers
  requires their permission.
• The IETF is a volunteer organization with no
  membership, open to participation by all, and
  works by mailing lists.
• The ITU is a treaty-based organization dating
  back to the foundation of telegraphy.

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Authority to include telephone numbers in the
system

• The ITU-T wants to be sure that national
  governments have authorized their countrys
  telephone numbers to be placed in the official
  E164.arpa root.
• Problem North America and the Caribbean belong
  to Country Code 1 (17 countries). Normally this
  would mean unanimous agreement among 17 countries
  
• Smaller countries suspicions of the implications
• Lack of interest or awareness
• What are our alternatives?

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The ENUM Delegation Tiers

• In order to get the official E164 delegation from
  the ITU, a country must apply for it.

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A hierarchy of Tiers

• If E164.arpa is to be the ultimate root of
  authority over ENUM, then the ITU wants ultimate
  authority over Tier 0, the root.
• Below Tier 0 lies the Tier 1 which is under
  national administration
• That is the North American Numbering Plan
  Administration (NANPA) for CC1.
• How do we assure national policy is followed when
  country code 1 is international?
• This has already been worked out in telephone
  numbering
• The DNS structure for Canada and the US is
  different
• dot ca and dot us

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ITU and IAB decide

• The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) selected a
  Dutch non-profit registry, RIPE NCC to operate
  the Tier 0 registry.
• Requests for delegation are checked by the ITU
• ITU determines what is and is not a country
• And what is or is not a valid country code
• And whether a country has asked for delegation
• Rule of unanimity for country code 1
• Delegations proceed only if ITU says so
• ITU has control of the contents of E164.arpa

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A structure for ENUM in CC1

• The US is developing an ENUM LLC (limited
  liability company) to receive delegation and
  manage a competition for a national US registry
• Canada has to figure out
• a) how to get national policy respected and
• b) sort out who will be the national registry for
  Canada
• c) How the national industry will work
• Enter Skinny Tier 1 a recipient of delegation
  from the ITU which hands off the registry work to
  national administrations in North America.

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Progress so far

• In Canada we have established a working group
  under the CRTC to develop ENUM policy
• http//www.crtc.gc.ca/cisc/eng/CSCNT53.HTM
• Participants (telcos, cable, CIRA, registrars)
  support
• immediate delegation of 1.e164.arpa on an interim
  basis to CC1
• the right of individual NANP nations to decide
  whether or not they opt into the use of ENUM
• regulatory requirements of each nation and the
  operational requirements of ENUM service
  providers in each nation should be satisfied

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Many issues remain

• Will the system conform to how the DNS works now?
  Or will it reflect how the numbering system
  works?
• Breaking the NAPTR records between Tier 1 and
  Tier 2
• Moving whole record over to the registry, when?
• How will we choose a Canadian provider?
• Use the US registry?
• Develop a new Canadian registry?
• Use CIRA?
• Is ENUM a consumer product or a system
  improvement that will be largely invisible to the
  consumer?

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Privacy

• No one wants their personal information on a
  database that anyone in the whole world can look
  up.
• ICANN has had large problems with the Whois
  registry for this reason.
• Canada will almost certainly adopt the called
  party control model where the publicly
  accessible record shows the minimum of
  information to allow the system to work, e.g.a
  SIP address.

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ENUM resources

• In Canada http//www.enumorg.ca
• http//www.crtc.gc.ca/cisc/eng/CSCNT53.HTM
• In the USA http//www.enum.org
• ENUM Basics Internet Protocol Journal
• http//www.cisco.com/warp/public/759/ipj_5-2.pdf
• ENUM core protocol http//www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc29
  16.txt
• ENUM charterhttp//www.ietf.org/html.charters/enu
  m-charter.html
• IETF-ITU liaison statementftp//ftp.isi.edu/in-no
  tes/rfc3026.txt
• Other ENUM Web Sites
• International telecommunications
  unionhttp//www.itu.int/infocom/enum/
• CyberTelecomhttp//www.cybertelecom.org/enum.htm

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Thank you

• www.tmdenton.com