E PLURIBUS ENUM: Unifying International Telecommunications Networks and Governance
Craig McTaggart

TL;DR
ENUM bridges telephone numbers and Internet domain names, raising important international policy issues that require coordinated public oversight to ensure technical integration, privacy, and fair competition.
Contribution
The paper advocates for a unified international governance framework for ENUM, emphasizing the need for public oversight of its naming and addressing resources at the global level.
Findings
ENUM integrates telephony and Internet infrastructure.
International public policy oversight is essential for ENUM.
Shared technical and policy considerations apply to Internet and telecommunications.
Abstract
ENUM effectively bridges the telephone and Internet worlds by placing telephone numbers from the ITU Rec. E.164 public telecommunication numbering plan into the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) as domain names. ENUM potentially presents significant public policy issues at both the domestic and international levels. Ultimately, it should not matter whether ENUM is approached as a telecommunications issue or an Internet issue because: (1) they are becoming the same thing technically, and (2) they engage the same global public interests. For the same reasons as apply to traditional telecommunications, and even to the Internet itself, public oversight of ENUM naming, numbering, and addressing resources is justified both by technical necessity and the interests of consumer protection (particularly personal privacy) and competition at higher service layers. A single, coordinated global DNS…
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Taxonomy
TopicsCybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies · IPv6, Mobility, Handover, Networks, Security · ICT Impact and Policies
