Robert Brand, director of IT and telecommunications consulting company Badja, told ZDNet Australia that Telstra and Optus have a lot of interest in ENUM – which maps telephone numbers to the DNS system – not going forward.
"I have a great concern about the whole thing being hijacked," said Brand. He equated ENUM with Voice over IP (VoIP), and said that Telstra and Optus were only "begrudgingly" supporting VoIP because they see it as a threat to their investments in PSTN technology. "Telstra see VoIP as a threat – as do Optus – to their traditional income."
Rod Bruem, public affairs manager of Telstra's legal and regulatory department, told ZDNet Australia that Telstra would not have done a forecast of the effect of ENUM on revenue from its PSTN services, but denied the company was inhibiting progress. "I reject that we are opposing any trials on that basis, our strongest concerns at this point relate to protecting customer information," he said.
"Telstra as a company doesn't adopt a head-in-the-sand approach to new technology," said Bruem.
When asked about Optus' position, a spokesperson for the company would only reply "it's very blue sky".
The Australian Communications Authority (ACA), which hosts the ENUM discussion group, claims progress on implementing ENUM is going well.
"The trial has not yet begun because the discussion group has been working to resolve issues related to privacy and security before a trial commences," said a spokesperson for the ACA. "Because any ENUM trial involves placing some degree of personal information in the DNS, there are some serious issues regarding privacy which much first be addressed."
"The Australian ENUM discussion group is aiming to release a [call for an] expression of interest [from] a tier 1 registry operator for an ENUM trial in early 2004 and a trial could be expected to commence by April 2004," said the ACA spokesperson.
Brand would like to see the ENUM trial proceed as soon as possible, warning that otherwise "instead of the money staying in Australia it will go outside". He warns Australia may be left behind in implementing the technology.
Telstra disagrees, with Bruem claiming "the level of preparation here is on par with the rest of the world".
According to the ACA, ENUM has not been commercially deployed anywhere in the world, although several trials are currently underway. "One particular problem that had arisen was the question of how to verify that details in the ENUM data were correct and provided by a person who had the right to do so," said the ACA spokesperson. "As stated earlier, the Australian ENUM discussion group is working to resolve security-oriented issues of this type before a trial commences."
Brand is also concerned that members of the telecommunications industry may not wait until ENUM is available and create their own systems.
"There are carriers who see it [ENUM] as a solution to routing problems, and I believe they have created their own internal ENUM systems," said Brand, adding this may prevent users from using ENUM in the future.
"They'll do it using non-ENUM solutions which may or may not be compatible with ENUM when it comes out. It may be very bad for users because there'll be no rules," said Brand. He warned if there was no standard to follow and no agreed regulations, the different systems may not be compatible.
