[enum-wg] repost: Proposal for non-geographic ENUM E.164 UPTS for the general public

hi!

 > Wether you have issues with non-geographical E.164 or not depends a
 > lot of what regulation there is on E.164 numbers in the country code
 > you want numbers in.

this is true for geographical i.e. cc-number space, but not for numbers 
from non-geographic prefixes. +878 is non-geographical space, a 'country 
code' not assigned to a region or state. the idea is to have a prefix 
allocated to the RIRs, and of course there have to be policies for this 
number space at the RIRs - i guess the RIR/NRO context is a perfect 
place to create such policies.

 > Other examples of issues include portability to other
 > providers.

right. the idea behind non-geographic space is its good reference of 
voip-requirements. if number porability to pstn users is desired, the 
whois-solution should work for these cases too, if a pstn provider wants 
to offer portability to pstn i guess this implies a solution for the 
pstn-side by the requesting provider (probably more easy e.g. in mobile 
networks). but in case this space will never be used in pstn networks, 
it still is a helpful and good solution for voip-users.

 > Example: Sweden (+46) require portability between providers of voice
 > services, but do not have geographical portability (yet). This imply
 > if you as an operator in Sweden you have to allow people to move their
 > number both to and from you.

this is regulation of the +46 cc-number space, i guess. otherwise if you 
say 'numbers' certainly PA space would be a problem, probably domain 
names, etc.
but even if regulations in one country prohibit users and providers to 
use global numbers for voip, in other countries this would still be a 
preferable solution.

 > My point is not that your idea is wrong, but that you have to take
 > into account a number of different issues...

certainly. i hope this is the right place for a discussion for these 
issues, and for finding good solutions for identified problems. :)

 > Can you be more specific on what the rules are for E.164 numbers in
 > your neck of the woods?

that's germany. +49 numbers are in their regions fully portable between 
pstn providers. currently large regional blocks are reallocated by voip 
gateway providers to voip-users. so a voip-user from e.g. dresden can 
have a number from e.g. duesseldorf, hamburg, berlin, munich - or all of 
them. that's really ugly but voip providers actually have no big choice. 
there is a 'region' reserved for non-regional (in the end of course 
still national) numbers (+4932), but this is currently discussed and 
it's unlikely that this prefix will be useably anytime soon. also, there 
are strong doubts that this prefix will be freely available to 
voip-providers, the current discussion shows that there will probably be 
dependencies and drawbacks especially for voip.

kind regards,

	Chris Heinze