ENUM tags

I was perusing the new bells and whistles in the Nominet online thingy yesterday and I saw a section that enabled you to apply for an ENUM tag.

I can't find it now though... In the absence of any official launch* or info from Nominet I assume that this was just a test and shouldn't have been there. Did anyone else see it?

I do remember that the price wasn't cheap though, I think it was £350+VAT ish. It may have been £325, £375 or £300, but it definitely started with a 3! Assuming it was a test, this could of course have been a test price and not the real one.

Clearly without the full details of ENUM and how it will work, it would be inappropriate to start screaming about prices and cost recovery and all that sort of thing.





* Launch - not to be confused with an opulent free lunch, which is what the PAB get every two months.

 

I caught a glimpse of this too. They also had a page on the website about the whole setup.

 

ENUM

Nominet News Blog Archive ENUM - what’s it all about?

 

"However, if someone within Company A wishes to connect to someone in Company B using their VoIP server currently, they need to connect to a telephone network provider who makes the connection to the other company. Obviously this costs money, as the calls are charged for by the telephone company."


If company A want to talk to company B, then they will route their calls over their Leased Line, which once across one ISP to another, will route over company Bs Leased Line at no cost to either party.

I cannot see how this will work or who will need it. If a company are using VOIP then they will have a Leased Line somewhere in the organisation that they can use.

 

it does make sense, I think. At the moment, company A does all internal calls on VOIP. So does company B. If they want to talk to each other, the VOIP switch has to revert to a regular phone connection, incurring charges from the telco.

The idea is that this enum stuff will mean that the switch will be able to lookup a route to the second company (much like DNS & routing tables I guess) and go via internet connections without incurring that additional telco cost.

Yes, this can be done at the moment by installing leased lines to all your main offices and chief suppliers etc. but this method is supposed to work for anyone.

 

If a company is savvy enough run voip internally then they are going to have a Leased Line, that must be a given.

If they do have said connection, then they can route their voip calls over their already paid for internet connection.

 

yes indeed, but not all VOIP systems have interconnects in place, and some those that do can be very tricky to setup. If a VOIP call can't find a route, then it will revert to the telco connection. My understanding is that by registering with the Enum stuff is that your VOIP system can look them up and find the correct route without any further jiggery pokery. And that to ANYONE with an enum thing, not just your regular contacts who you will have setup.

One of my clients uses VOIP between 3 branch offices around the country, only a small business, all run over broadband connections. But they then have to use a regular phone line to call suppliers and partners etc (many who I guarantee will have a VOIP connection). With Enum they would be able to call any of these on their VOIP phones, thus making a pretty big saving (although how the cost of having an enum cache server may neaget that!)