The differences between the telephone system and the
internet blurred more today asNominet
, the .uk domain name registry, was awarded the contract to run the
top tier registry for UKENUM
, a standard that will unify the telephone numbering system with
the internet'sDomain Name
System.
The move offers the prospect of cheaper or free calls for all
telephony users as differences between
VoIP servers are resolved.
ENUM is a suite of protocols that makes it possible to relate a
domain name to a telephone number, and then use that domain name to
identify various communications devices such as fax, mobile phone,
voice-mail, e-mail, IP telephony addresses or web pages.
The BERR (formerly the
DTI) set up UK ENUM Consortium (UKEC) to administer the UK ENUM top
level domain. UKEC awarded the Tier 1 registry contract to Nominet.
Nominet will now join the International Telecommunication Union,
Telecommunication Standardisation Sector, ITU-T.
ENUM allows different VoIP servers to link so that telephones
that use VoIP technology can connect via the internet to other
devices that use other VoIP providers. As a result, calls between
VoIP users will be much cheaper or free, because there is no need
to connect to the telephone network for the call.
Although it facilitates calling VoIP users from IP and PSTN
networks, ENUM is not a VoIP function and is different to common
VoIP routing based on SIP, H.323 or IAX protocols with a Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI).