Comment by car
15 hours ago
In Germany it is possible to register an ENUM domain for a phone number. This provides a DNS mapping from the E164 number to DNS records, e.g. for IP phones, etc.
Decentralized and under user control, no shitty silos like FaceTime, WhatsApp.
ENUM stands for “Telephone Number Mapping.” It is essentially a bridge between the world of telecommunications and the Internet. With a single ENUM domain, you can combine all your contact options under your familiar phone number:
The main point of ENUM was compatibility with open SIP, unfortunately that never really happened and most SIP operators do not accept incoming calls from public internet (and do not route outgoing calls based on ENUM).
Sadly ENUM is dead or buried or both for many countries.
I saw this lets you do Fax over IP. Any other advantages or usecases?
I don't know if this gets much personal use, seems real cumbersome.
But this is of huge interest to carriers, since it allows them to skip the PSTN/peering cost when the callee endpoint is an IP phone.
There is private ENUM for carrier use I recall, not sure what the current status is, with LTE/VoLTE, RCS etc.pp.
http://dam3d3.free.fr/PFE/Pathfinder/GSMA_PathFinder_WebSite...
Here the list of countries that have ENUM delegated for their country code.
https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/inr/enum/Pages/delegations.aspx
Time travel.