John Patrick: ENUM is a Really Big Deal

penciling_in writes "John Patrick, former vice president of Internet technology at IBM, says 'ENUM is a really big deal'. Here is what he has to say on CircleID about this: 'Basically, ENUM is a protocol that will make it possible to converge the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and the Internet. In other words, a telephone number can get you to a Web service -- telephone number in, URL out. The idea can be extremely useful when you consider that most telephones are limited to twelve keys on a keypad. Every try to enter your alphanumeric login ID and password to a web site on a cell phone or Personal Digital Assistant? It is next to impossible! The biggest impact of ENUM will probably be for Voice Over IP (VoIP). In fact, it could be the tipping point.'"

Comments

I'd RATHER use URL's on my PHONE...

[dpbsmith]

Telephone numbers are almost as long as numeric IP addresses. Why not get rid of DNS and key in the addresses? And issue paper "Internet books" where we could look up the IP addresses of sites we wanted to access?

I'm not sure what aspect of cognitive psychology explains this, but I and many of my middle-aged friends acknowledge having problems remembering local phone numbers now that in our state we are required to dial area codes on all calls.

I'm talking about short-term memory here. Forget long-term memory, I haven't stored telephone numbers in my brain in years; I have a Palm for that.

What I'm saying is that I can look in a telephone book, see the local number 762-####, and even though all local numbers have the area code 781, remembering to dial 781 (and dialing it) put enough extra strain on my enfeebled brain that by the time I've dialed the 781 and the 762, I can't remember the last four digits any more.

Actually I dial 1-781-762 because, for some unknown reason, the power that be have decided that a) you must dial a 1 if the call is a local toll call; b) there is no simple algorithm for determining whether or not an exchange in the 781 area code is a local toll call or not; c) if I don't dial the 1 some of my calls will not go through; d) if I always dial 1 all of them go through; e) dialling the 1 does not change the cost of the call, so... well, you get the idea.

Information theory says that the "1" carries no information, and the "781"--being the same on 95% of my calls--carries less than a single bit of information. That "1781" should only amount to a fraction of a digit's worth of memory strain.

Well, tell it to my brain, because it apparently doesn't know how to do data compression on the leading digits of telephone numbers.

Even if I keep the telephone book in my hand, by the time I've finished dialing the 1-781-762, my eyes have moved off the page and it takes me a good two or three seconds to reacquire the listing visually, scan carefully horizontally to make sure I'm picking up the number that's on the same line as the name, get those last four digits, and transfer my attention back to the the dial.

The phone system seems to be getting less and less patient even as telephone numbers get longer and longer. Even though the equipment must cost orders of magnitude less than it did twenty years ago, the engineers that set the timeouts apparently can't stand having their precious equipment tied up. The result is that sometimes the phone times out and abort the call before I can key in the last four digits.

Yes, I considered posting this as an Anonymous Coward. No, I don't have any memory-related mental diseases--and I'm not all that old.

But the prospect of tying websites to telephone numbers strikes me as the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time.

No Kidding

[4of12]

There are many issues to be worked out

Technically, the QoS (latency) over the low quality lines, seems something of an issue. I read somewhere that anything more than 0.1 sec latency makes conversation noticeably less spontaneous. Maybe it will encourage us all to listen to others without interrupting them:)

Politically, the regulated monopolies that provide local telephone service will be difficult to interface with. They'll demand money for access to the offices (some people have stories about this), but are also obligated to maintain lines and obey a slew of regulations, such as providing service to backwater areas, emergency service, tacking on a whole zoo of fees and taxes.