Subject: [Enum] Is ENUM anti-competitive?

From: "Lee Dryburgh" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:34:33 +0100

Hi Folks,

There are a stack of services/applications which I would like to
investigate which require (amongst other things) a single identifier.
Lately, due to the seemingly slow pace of progress in the realms of
digital identity, I thought of using ENUM to provide the required
single identifier service.

But from my reading around ENUM (this mailing list and associated
documents) I have a number of concerns with the primary one being the
fear that ENUM is anti-competitive. It would appear to give telcos
(who pay my wages) ongoing control over a numbering business and as
such gives them power to hold a consumer (who may wish to break away
for service) hostage.

As a test question, how easy for it would it be for Skype to become a
Tier-2 player (so that they could control my E.164 identity)?

In addition, from my understanding of the situation the identity space
(E.164) is unlikely to be unbundled from the telephony service, thus
an ENUM contact identifier could only be purchased as an add on to
existing voice/rental service and that service providers are unlikely
to sell numbers (and corresponding management) separately from a voice
service?

Hopefully my concerns are not true?

Thanks in advance

_______________________________________________
enum mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/enum

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:40:25 -0400

Humm .. first of all as ENUM co-chair thank you for your thoughtful note you
raise may interesting issues that many of us are continuing to struggle
with.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee Dryburgh [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 7:35 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [Enum] Is ENUM anti-competitive?
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 

Well Digital Identity is a large and complex subject that is being dealt
with in multiple fora for a including the IETF SIP working groups. I would
suggest reading. 

Jennings, C., Peterson, J., and M. Watson, "Private Extensions to the
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for Asserted Identity within Trusted
Networks", RFC 3325, November 2002.

SIP and the Security Assertion Markup Language
http://www.softarmor.com/wgdb/docs/draft-tschofenig-sip-saml-04.txt

SIP Identity
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-sip-identity-06.txt

SIP Identity Coexistance
http://tools.ietf.org/wg/sip/draft-rosenberg-sip-identity-coexistence-00.txt

Liberty Alliance: The Liberty Alliance is comprised of over 60 member
companies representing a wide variety of industries and over a billion
customers, with operations all over the globe. Each of the member companies
either owns and operates large communities of interest or is the developer
of core technology that can enable a federation of online communities.
http://www.projectliberty.org/

SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language): An XML standard for exchanging
authentication and authorization data between security systems. See 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/security/#documents. 

What applications are you trying to enable?

> such gives them power to hold a consumer (who may wish to break away

Not necessarily true. The current national implementations of RFC 3761
within e164.arpa give to the consumer ...aka the number holder vs the
carrier of record the right to write the zone files.

This has been the thrust of regulatory implementations up to this date. 

However many carriers have understood that they have internal as well as
external interconnection issues that could use a parallel implementation of
3761 specifically targeted towards the issuer of the E.164 number vs the
consumer. Hence the work here on what is generally referred to as
Infrastructure ENUM.

Title		: Infrastrucure ENUM Requirements
	Author(s)	: S. Lind, P. Pfautz
	Filename	:
draft-ietf-enum-infrastructure-enum-reqs-03.txt
	Pages		: 7
	Date		: 2006-8-8
	
This document provides requirements for "infrastructure" or "carrier"
ENUM (E.164 Number Mapping), defined as the use of RFC 3761 technology to
facilitate interconnection of networks for E.164 number addressed services,
in particular but not restricted to VoIP (Voice over IP.)

A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-enum-infrastructure-enum-
reqs-03.txt

> Tier-2 player (so that they could control my E.164 identity)?

The management of E.164 numbers are a matter of national control totally
outside the scope of the ENUM WG. This is a national sovereign issue. And
the management of the zones of e164.arpa has generally been interpreted as
being within the national sovereign scope of the nation state.

See your local telecom regulator for further information :-) 

> to sell numbers (and corresponding management) separately from a voice

Maybe maybe not,  again this is an national issue .. you are correct in
identifying E.164 as a globally unique and well managed namespace that could
be used as a address for the location of a identity object ( hopefully SAML)
that could contain multiple attributes etc. But that has yet to be seen.

> Hopefully my concerns are not true?

You are asking the right questions.. the answers are yet to be seen.

> Thanks in advance

Not at all thanks for asking.

I'm sure others on this list will chime in.

---

From: "Stastny Richard" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:36:16 +0200

> be used as a address for the location of a identity object (hopefully
> SAML)

This is basically correct:

E.164 numbers ARE the identifiers for the telephony service. As Richard
Shockey points out, in User ENUM (e164.arpa - not in Infrastructure
ENUM) 
the consumer has the right to write the zone file. 

BUT only for an existing phone number. So it is - as you recognize -
an add on to an existing phone service.

There is one exception: nationally a number range may be defined (as
in Austria +43780), where the phone service comes only in existence
with the ENUM entry. But also here it is mandatory that
the number is treated as a phone service on the PSTB 
and routed at least via one gateway to the Internet)

Nevertheless, as you may link an ENUM entry to any service on the
Internet (e.g. mailto), you may also enter a pointer to a certificate.

In ETSI TS 102 152 we have proposed an enumservice "key" pointing
to a public key certificate. This could e.g. be used if you send a
signed e-mail to somebody.

Maybe this or a similar enumservice should be reconsidered again.

regards
Richard Stastny

> From: Richard Shockey [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 4:40 AM
> To: 'Lee Dryburgh'; [email-masked]
> Subject: RE: [Enum] Is ENUM anti-competitive?
> 
> 
> Humm .. first of all as ENUM co-chair thank you for your thoughtful
note
> you
> external interconnection issues that could use a parallel
implementation
> of

---

From: Jim Reid <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:34:31 +0100

> to sell numbers (and corresponding management) separately from a voice

ENUM is the mapping of E.164 numbers into domain names. How someone  
gets an E.164 number is their business: not the IETF's. This  
generally involves a transaction with a company that provides  
telephone service of some sort. As you noted. :-) However there are  
companies who provide ENUM registrations and "telephone service"  
without necessarily offering conventional voice or fax service. For  
instance, the regulators in a few European countries have allocated  
number ranges for VoIP service and given out blocks from those ranges  
to providers. So when a customer gets a number in one of these  
ranges, it's largely for VoIP and an ENUM registration is a no- 
brainer. Essentially the E.164 number is an end-point to allow PSTN  
users to hopefully terminate a conventional call to that customer.

Another consideration here is authentication and validation. In many  
parts of the world, ENUM is an opt-in process and numbers can only be  
entered if the end-user can prove they have the right to use the  
number. This will usually require the co-operation of the telco  
providing service for that number. If they don't, validation either  
fails or doesn't happen at all. That's anti-competitive (sort of).  
However end users can always switch telephone service to a telco that  
will authenticate and validate them for ENUM purposes.

---

From: Tony Rutkowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:22:00 -0400

Hi Lee,

As others have noted, ENUM is merely an Internet DNS
E.164 number resolution technique first developed in
the early 90s by Malamud & Rose which still exists at
TPC.INT.  Arguably, a North American based alternative
platform that's somewhat less flexible can be found in
the LERG and SS7 message protocols.

As you note, E.164 numbers have value because they are
relatively stable, generally authenticated, simple numeric
global public communication infrastructure identifiers maintained
over many decades by government and the telecommunication
industry through the ITU.  There is a useful history of
E.164 with detailed citations from 1945 to 2001 at:

   draft-rutkowski-enum-basis-00.txt

Arguably, the most valuable E.164 identity protocol is
E.115-2006 which provides a trusted means to exchange
and bill for an array of diverse E.164 related identity
information.  It's a very nicely done specification that
can support both XML and ASN.1 syntaxes.  In a world where
identity management is becoming more valuable, E.115-2006
may be where the E.164 opportunities exist.

--tony