Clearly VOIP is viewed as a strong driver of Broadband service and thus infrastructure in the U.S. market. An additional, and lesser understood, driver for broadband services and infrastructure development in the US is the enhanced capabilities of the Internet Protocol afforded by IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) which exponentially increases the number of available Internet addresses, enables the proliferation of enhanced mobile services and applications, and affords an overall increased security. ENUM, a mapping protocol in use by global directory clearinghouses, depends in large part on the deployment of IPv6 as this next generation of the internet enables the assignment of IP addresses to everything with connectivity to the internet. In this case, if you look up ENUM, Wikipedia will fail to correctly define the term; ENUM is not a simple telephone number mapping protocol. ENUM has the potential to expand its use beyond mapping of telephone numbers and email addresses to a universal and global assignment of individuals to their associated numbers (telephone, IP addresses, email addresses, residences, bank numbers, drivers license numbers, and passport numbers). This promises a true convergence of communications devices onto the Internet by facilitating the integration of telephone numbers and IP addresses. There are various reasons for the interest in developing a global ENUM network. Chief among these is a monitoring and control capability which will allow governments to administer the society they serve. It makes possible, among other things, a consumer ability to finish watching a television program once he gets home from a friend’s house. In fact, the one year long ENUM trial in North America ended on February 17 of 2007, under the authority of the ITU. The results of the trial will be released to governmental bodies at the end of April 2007. Participating companies include GoDaddy, VeriSign, NeuStar (the clearinghouse which controls all IP addresses, landline phone numbers, and mobile phone numbers in North America), Qwest, InCharge Systems, Instra, DelTel, Evolving Systems, AG Design, Seiri, BellSouth, Encirca, and Verizon. The dark side of ENUM and IPv6 is its infringement on the fundamental rights afforded to Americans by their constitution. In some countries around the world, governmental observance of its populous is considered acceptable due to the benefits of security that result from losing individual privacy. However, even technologists must consider the implications of enabling governmental tracking of its population as the misuse of this capability in the hands of even a transient 4-year administration may do much more harm than illegal and indiscriminant wiretapping.
