Initial benefit - cheaper calls between VoIP systems

The most important benefit of ENUM is that enables a business or consumer with a VoIP system to locate others business or consumers with VoIP systems and call them directly across the Internet, bypassing the ordinary telephone system and thereby costing no more than the rental already being paid for the Internet connection.

In the diagram below there are two companies. The one on the left has a VoIP system with users distributed around the globe, some in the head office, some in home offices and some nomadic. The company on the right also has a VoIP system, but if the two want to talk to each other across the Internet then, without ENUM, they can't because their two VoIP servers cannot find each other. ENUM enables one server to locate the other and the calls therefore go across the Internet.

 

Fig.1  Diagram showing relationship between Telecommunication companies, businesses, and VoIP technologies.

Future benefits - sophisticated applications

ENUM allows you to publish much more information to be associated with your telephone numbers, than just how to make a call to that number. For example you can publish your postal address details, your email details or other location information. We anticipate interesting applications that take advantage of this to start to appear and provide even greater benefit to using ENUM.