Telephone system and Internet will be joined together
Jim Jamieson
Province
In Vancouver yesterday, analyst Timothy Denton predicted fundamental changes coming. CREDIT: Kim Stallknecht, The Province
In the not-too-distant future you may be buying your telephone number from a domain-name registrar instead of being assigned one by the phone company.
So says Timothy Denton, a telecommunications analyst who was in Vancouver yesterday to address the Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority — the non-profit body responsible for operating the dot-ca Internet country code.
Denton, a member of CIRA’s board of directors, believes an emerging communications standard called ENUM will revolutionize the way people keep in touch with each other.
ENUM allows the translation of standard telephone numbers into a format that can retrieve Net-based information and can also be used to route communications over the web.
In essence, ENUM can bridge the gap between the traditional telephone network and the Internet — yielding cost savings and greater flexibility in communications.
“It is the next big thing,” Denton said in an interview before his CIRA address.
“It’s going to change everything at a fundamental technical level. It’ll bring in more services to people who want them. It will unite the two billion telephones with the hundreds of millions of computers there are worldwide.
“It will allow you to get information out of devices that are now not accessible by telephones.”
When ENUM is adopted, phone numbers will become hyperlinks to the Internet.
“It will enable you to connect your phone to span the generation gap between computers and phones,” he said.
“You can punch in a number and other resources become available to you that aren’t just telephony. It’s a way of combining these two worlds in an addressing system that is based on Internet tech, rather than phone technology.”
Currently, Internet telephone calling — technically called Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) — is moving its way through the corporate world and beginning to hit the consumer radar screen.
Eventually, all phone calls will be done through the Internet.
Denton, however, said we can expect to be dealing with the current antiquated phone system for some time to come.
In the meantime, ENUM also would offer complete number portability that has no reference to geography.
How soon might we see this rolling out?
Denton suggested we’re still a few years away.
An industry-government process was started in Canada this spring, with phone companies, cable companies, domain-name registrars and CIRA involved. The U.S. is engaged in the same process.
In North America, a big issue to be resolved is the international country codes. There are 19 countries under +1, including Canada, the U.S. and most of the Caribbean.
Japan, China and Korea are several years ahead of the rest of the world and are currently in testing, Denton said.
© The Vancouver Province 2004