Stealth Communications Inc., which owns and operates a VoIP minutes exchange, has launched an ENUM registry that takes telephone numbers and converts them into numeric IP addresses. VPF ENUM Registry presently holds more than 1 million phone numbers, which represents only a small number of the total phone numbers in the U.S., but it continues to add numbers.
"With ENUM, the telephone number is sent to the DNS server, which then replies back with a list of URLs,” says Shrihari Pandit, CEO and founder of Stealth. “This opens up a whole new world of applications and services driven solely by a phone number.”
For example, it allows the person who initiates the call to access another person’s preferred contact information and choose the method of communications.
Stealth’s VPF ENUM Registry also has the potential to drastically reduce the operating expenses of VoIP carriers because it allows them to terminate directly on each others network at zero cost, adds Pandit. While telephone calls made between two organizations typically transit through the PSTN and incur termination charges, using the VPF ENUM Registry, both organizations are able to terminate calls directly to one another, with no termination costs.
Access to the VPF ENUM Registry is not limited to service providers. Educational institutions, municipal governments and businesses all can use the service to cut costs.
Current service users include Acropolis Telecom, Addaline.Com, Free World Dialup, MIT, Net2Phone, Packet8 and Yale University.
