Re: [Enum] E.164 communication assumptions/requirements

[Otmar Lendl <lendl at nic.at>]

On 2005/07/27 22:07, Stastny Richard <Richard.Stastny at oefeg.at> wrote:
> Penn,
>  
> if you say so.
>  
> Nevertheless, do not forget that with ENUM calls
> may terminate on the PSTN and also on IP (via ENUM)
> Do you think the carrier may decide without the user
> consent where to terminate the call?
>  
> -richard
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
> 
> Richard:
> The ITAC report was not as you interpret it. Opt-in for the calling
> entity means there is no duty to query or to use the result if the query
> is made. The originator in this clause was NOT restricted to be the end
> user but could be the calling user's carrier.

There is a nice non-ENUM related example for such rerouting of calls:

The German incumbent T-Com offers its customers a product called
"Switch&Profit".  (sorry, only german links)

http://www.pcwelt.de/news/vermischtes/115495/
http://www.golem.de/0507/39117.html

The idea is the following:

When T-Com user A wants to call T-Com user B on his mobile (operated by
e.g. Vodafone), then T-Com has to play rather high termination fees to
Vodafone to complete the call. Those costs are of course charged to user
A. [Remember: in Europe it's sender pays all for calls to mobiles. There
are no charges incurring on the receiving side.]

Now, when B is actually at home, there is no need to use the Vodafone
mobile to reach him, calling him on his fixed line is good enough. 
Here is where "Switch&Profit" comes in: if B subscribes to this service
and tells T-Com that he is at home, then T-Com will re-route the call to
B's fixed line. T-Com will still charge A the same $/min, but T-Com does
no longer need to play Vodafone. That profit is shared between T-Com and
B who receives 2.59 cent/min for such calls.

---------------------

As with ENUM, the destination of a call advertises the availability of
an alternative way of completing the call. If it's financially beneficial
for an originating telco to take up this offer, why should it decline to
do so?

The only open issue here is of regulatory nature. In the example from
above: Does Vodafone have a right to receive the call to B even if B 
told T-Com that an alternative is fine with him?

I've no idea whether the legal aspects of this service have been settled yet.

Given http://www.teletarif.de/arch/2004/kw42/s15139.html, it looks
like there have been legal disputes already.

(hehe, and they even have the same validation issue as with user ENUM:
http://www.xdial.de/arch/2004/kw42/s15152.html )

/ol
-- 
< Otmar Lendl (lendl at nic.at) | nic.at Systems Engineer >

_______________________________________________
enum mailing list
enum at ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/enum