ENUM is an exciting technological development that will enable businesses to benefit from cheaper or even free telephone calls in the near future. Nominet registrars and other telecoms focused businesses will be able to become ENUM registrars, and expand their offering to include the sale of ENUM registrations. For many of our members it will offer a foothold in the telephony market with minimal required investment and will open the door to other broader business opportunities.

What are the potential benefits and opportunities for ENUM registrars?

UK ENUM will be available as a new service for Nominet members, domain name registrars and new ENUM only registrars to sell on to their customers. For many of our current members and registrars it will offer a foothold in the telephony market with minimal required investment and will open the door to other broader business opportunities. ENUM is a product that could potentially command higher margin than domain names and thus be a greater margin product for our registrars. Members will also have the advantage of being able to utilise the same supply channel that they have already invested in for .uk domain names and work with the same supplier billing processes.

Who will want ENUM registrations?

Potentially there is a huge demand for ENUM registrations. In particular the following types of companies would benefit greatly from ENUM:

• Large multi-connection point businesses
• Call centres (could use ENUM instead of 0800/0845 numbers)
• Businesses with large supply chains
• Businesses with multiple sites