Martin Geddes comments on the recent IETF meeting on ENUM and questions the desirability of carrier ENUM. In that post he expresses his desire to enter a PSTN number in the Skype client, which will in turn setup a Skype call if that PSTN subscriber is also a Skype user. In this context he states how he thinks PhoneGnome does the initial authentication. His idea is close to what I had stated previously. Either he has read what I previously wrote and don’t think it is that important to reference it or he thought of this independently. In either case, his action supports my claim that this scheme is known or can be developed by people “well versed in this art”. If you think I need to give much stronger evidence, take a look at slide number 13 of a presentation given to Department of State on Feb 12, 2001. So I am still mystified about the specific claims. I hope USPTO posts the application soon enough.
Even though the database maintained by PhoneGnome looks like ENUM and both could use the same authentication and registration procedure, in my thinking PhoneGnome does not yet offer ENUM service. For example when a user dials in a PhoneGnome subscriber’s phone number, the call will be delivered on the PSTN interface of the PhoneGnome box. For that matter, even Vonage, Packet8 et al will do the same thing.
Nothing prevents other VoIP service providers also give out customer id based on their PSTN number. So until and unless VoIP service providers form a consortium and settle on a “sub Carrier ENUM”, a call from any VoIP provider will end up on the PSTN interface. Some time back pulver.com submitted an application for TLD for this purpose (in my interpretation). But it got rejected. I do not know what their followup plans are; but this can be done with out the need of a TLD. I hope they will make it happen.
In the meantime, here is an additional source of revenue for PhoneGnome and its clones (I do hope, clones spring up quickly; that is when it will become a consumer item). They could strike partnership deals with Interexchange carriers to terminate calls on the IP interface of the PG box (it is the generic box; hence the name change) at a lower rate than the incumbents charge. Keep in mind that one makes money while terminating a call, not just when calls are originated. In some respects this is a better deal because the business arrangements are only with a limited number of enterprises and there is no need to maintain records of individual calls; just gross count is sufficient.
Posted by aswath at August 8, 2005 11:24 AM
The PhoneGnome idea is mildly interesting except for the fact that (1) you need some kind of hardware apparently and (2) it would be PhoneGnome-proprietary. I am sure if you changed the name of PhoneGnome to Cisco and Skype to Microsoft, many people would no longer be so enthusiastic. What leads you to believe that these companies will be any more open than others?
Pulver's .tel TLD proposal was interesting but ultimately failed. Carrier ENUM appears to be an open solution using an existing TLD. If an organization has phone numbers (from Vonage, to enterprises, to traditional carriers) then they should be able to participate and find a way to route VoIP calls over IP all the way. Without it, we have PSTN-imitation-VoIP where it is only IP-based on the access network and we connect to the regular old circuit-based PSTN to actually terminate calls (the old fashioned way). (Yes, Skype is different.)
Posted by: VoIP Dude at August 8, 2005 12:46 PM