Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

VoIP Gets a New P2P Routing Protocol (DUNDi)

Posted by michael on from the transylvania-6-5000 dept.

bkw.org writes "Today Digium released DUNDi which can be used with the Asterisk Open Source PBX for p2p call routing. Digum has also released a whitepaper (pdf) on DUNDi so others can implement this new technology into their products and give VoIP a push into the mainstream." Voxilla also has a story.

2 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Here come the security problems. by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Remember when closing off your email servers from open relaying was a skill that not everyone had a grasp of? Here we go again. While I do agree that VoIP inevitably requires more advanced routing, it is my fear that this will be abused for a long time until admins become skilled in the art of preventing unwanted forwards. In the meantime, you'll have...
    • Skript kiddiez abusing it to go VoIP-to-landline on someone else's nickel (oh yes, the days of phreaking are coming back)
    • Bulk dialers. You thought telemarketers were bad? Wait until the spammers get a hold of free calls to your home!
    I fear for the future... :)
    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
  2. Re:Where does the trust build from? by Scott+Laird · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, look at things this way: ENUM has been around for *years*, yet there's still no official ENUM tree. There's no way for VoIP carriers like Vonage to publish SIP addresses for the PSTN numbers that they service.

    Why? Because of political squabbling by telcos, verisign, and the like. Whoever controls the ENUM tree will be able to control the future of telecommunications. That means money and power, and that's why there's no progress occuring--all of the usual players are jockeying for position, and will be for years.

    Since ENUM is really just a DNS tree, that hasn't stopped people from producing their own ENUM trees (e164.org, etc), but there's nothing particularly official about any of them. They're all interim solutions, and none of them are big enough to be able to make a difference on their own.

    There are a couple differences with DUNDi. First, it's *designed* to be decentralized, without a single point of control (or toll collection). There's an open-source implementation right out of the gate. It at least pays lip service to spam and telemarketing issues. As long as you sign the agreement, it *should* be possible for anyone to participate. And, it already has several mid-sized providers involved.

    In short, right out of the gate, DUNDi is already ahead of ENUM, because it's already usable, while ENUM still doesn't have any way to publish numbers in the "official" e164.arpa tree. DUNDi doesn't have room for Verisign-style toll collection, while the official ENUM tree almost requires it.

    We'll see how it goes. If Vonage joins up, then DUNDi has probably won and ENUM will end up being irrelevant, because the network effect will strongly favor DUNDi.