Re: ENUM trials in general

[Jim Reid <]

I am not convinced of the need for whois (either in general or for
ENUM in particular). There is general consensus within the UK ENUM
Group that a whois functionality is neither necessary nor desirable.
I suppose this could change in light of experience gained during the
trial.

For ENUM, I think that ultimately DNS hosting will be done by the
telco or equivalent entity that's responsible for some number block.
If that's true, this entity can be the initial point of contact for
any DNS technical issues which crop up. I wonder how often whois gets
genuinely used for that purpose today? And for ENUM, there will be
cases where people will want to register a domain and NOT have a whois
entry at all: an unlisted phone number perhaps. I believe that some
regulators can get uptight about providing a reverse lookup capability
on telephone numbers.