Fri 30th Jul, 2010 05:46 am

What is Enum?

ENUM stands for Electronic NUmber Mapping. A protocol developed by the IETF and detailed in RFC 3761 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3761.txt), ENUM provides a means to map telephone numbers to domain names enabling the identification of a variety of services such as VoIP, fax and email available at that telephone number. ENUM is being heralded as the means to interconnect the PSTN and Internet worlds.

For more information see:

http://www.enum.at/index.php?id=335&L=9

http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/enum-charter.html

http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/enum/index.html

http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/enum/index.phtml

ENUM enables the linking of internet resources with the conventional telephone network for the first time. ENUM makes it possible to link the commonly used internet addresses (email addresses, websites, VoIP numbers, …), which only consist of letters, numbers and special characters, with traditional telephone numbers – this is a precondition that enables the addressing of internet services like VoIP via “letter-less or digit-only” telephones. ENUM also provides the use of one single number as an address for many different communication services – regardless of whether that service is phone, fax, mail, chat, or Instant Messaging.

This technology is primarily used in combination with internet telephony (VoIP). The end user device (e.g. a PC telephone software or an IP telephone) checks whether there is a corresponding ENUM domain for the number being called. If so, the call is forwarded to the IP address that has been configured by the called partner. As a result the entire connection is established via the internet, effectively eliminating call charges. If no ENUM domain is found for the called number, the connection is established via the conventional telephone network.

However, ENUM also enables the use of the normal telephone number to send an e-mail or to access the website of the number owner. Thus, the user is reachable via the same number in both the internet (VoIP, e-mail, www, etc.) and the conventional telephone network.

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