New Role for ENUM?

Analysts at the Yankee Group think there might be a new market developing for network elements or functions that provide the electronic numbering function that today is provided by peering federations. Such IP Routing Directories functionally provide the basic information required for interconnecting discrete VoIP networks.

Proponents of ENUM have argued that the business benefits derive from operational cost savings and service quality made possible by avoiding traditional PSTN routing infrastructure (SS7) to complete VoIP calls destined for a non-local VoIP
endpoint.

To date, business issues and volume issues have proven to be stumbling blocks. Large carriers make enough money from interconnection that any move to models that dispense with such payments are undesirable. That's the business issue.

And though native VoIP networks obviously require some sort of interconnection fabric, the fact remains that VoIP still is a small amount of total volume.

For the moment, legacy interconnection requirements remain essential. The percent of originating VoIP calls that are actually destined for an IP endpoint are sufficiently small that it might not make terrifically great sense to shift to an IPRD function of some sort.

Ideally, IP-to-IP connections are preferable. But the cost and quality issues might be a growing irritant rather than a compelling necessity for a large carrier, at the moment.

The pain of media conversion and database dips might not be creating enough pain to require an immediate shift to ENUM, in other words. Not to ignore the revenue implications for large carriers, either.