[enum-wg] The ENUM Federation: activities, website etc.

Distribution List:

+> bod at enumfederation.org
    +> ???, enum.at (Austria)
    +> Pavel Tuma, CZ.NIC (Czech Republic)
    +> Joerg Schweiger, DENIC (Germany)
    +> ???, SIDN (Netherlands)
    +> ???, nominet (United Kingdom)

+> enum-wg at ripe.net
    +> Niall O'Reilly, RIPE ENUM WG Co-Chair
    +> Carsten Schiefner, RIPE ENUM WG Co-Chair

+> Patrik Fältström, ENUM inventor

===

Dear all -

first of all, I do hope that you all have had some lovely holidays and 
could relax and recharge batteries!

As you may be aware, I have had some multilateral, but also bilateral 
talks with some of you wrt. the ENUM Federation and particularly its 
website at:

	http://www.enumfederation.org/

As I got it, there have recently some ideas been floated around amongst 
the BoD members about a very last attempt to give the idea behind the 
Federation a push.

Reasons are, amongst others, that ENUM in the Carrier space gets more 
and more grip, but also in the public name space with the advent of the 
NRENUM activities.

But although the registration of a phone number as an ENUM domain bears 
quite some similarity with the usual registration of a domain under a 
TLD, there is at least one crucial thing that might actually hinder a 
massive take-up in registration figures, even if all other preconditions 
are fully in place: that is that the registrant would never fully "own" 
a number where the ENUM domain is derived from - contrary to a classic 
domain name. There is carrier and geopgraphic number portability in 
place, of course - however, if one cancels the PSTN service the number 
comes with the number goes away too.

So, the ENUM federation could also be a good place to initiate a 
discussion about a change in this regulation scheme, for example.

Anyhow: I'd see such (re)launch activities quite complementary to what 
is usually being discussed and done in the ENUM WG, as the focus of the 
Federaion is much more on the actual promotion of ENUM in a commercial 
sense, if I am correct.

I would be happy to take this up - and what I have heard from Niall 
sounds very similar. So please consider this email a kick-off to start 
some meaningful debate how it shoud be proceeded.

All the best,

	Carsten