[asterisk-biz] Canadian Association of Voice over IP provider s EN UM Infrastructure working group teleconference

[Colin Anderson]

Thanks for raising some good points. I think I can clarify CAVP's position
here:

>a) while many carriers run IP in their network, I doubt any of them will 
>want to *accept* calls from another carrier over public intarweb, much 
>less *send* the calls to another carrier. I certainly won't. Unless 
>there's some push for "carrier-only private network to connect 
>enum-enabled carriers" or carriers interconnecting via switches at 
>soem fabrics, I doubt you will have any big boys using it.

CAVP views an IP-only interconnect standard as a nessisary next step 
in the advancement of Voice over IP in the Canadian market space that is
designed specifically for CLEC's, small players, and businesses. Assuming
that the standard gets hashed out, and adopted by the majority of CLEC's
and other small-timers, the standard will force ILEC's to embrace it
and wrest control of (at least a portion of) interconnect away from 
ILEC's and force the Canadian CRTC to rule on it's regulation. 
The thinking is, that the CRTC will see an ENUM Interconnect standard 
as a mature, existing and working standard and will regulate it 
"in situ" rather than soliciting opinion and proposals from ILEC's, 
which gives everyone involved (except ILEC's) an advantage in how 
services are delivered to endusers. A standard that is regulated 
and mandated by the CRTC outside of the purview of ILEC lobbyists will 
force ILEC's to come to terms with IP-interconnect in a fashion that 
protects the interests of CLEC's and other bit players.
It's a "wag the dog" kind of play.

As to the relative worth about interconnecting calls in the internet,
calls are already being transferred *today* and will be in the future 
more and more, so IP-Interconnect will happen whether there is a 
standard or not. For the sake of everyone involved, it is better to
have a workable standard than a patchwork of private agreements and
undocumented API's.

>b) CLECs are notorious for not cooperating with each other, even if their 
>lives depended on that. I doubt there are many CLECs in NYC that have 
>trunks built to each other to pass traffic. Instead, they send inter-CLEC 
>traffic via VZ tandem, and pay for switching. 

While that may be true in the Continental US, we Canadians are a bit more
accomodating :-) During previous CAVP conference calls on this issue,
support
for an IP-only interconnect standard was unanimous and overwhelming. 

>c) Also, just as much as CLECs hate paying access fees to ILECs, no CLEC
>is willing to give up access fees they *charge* other CLECs for 
>termination on their network.

Again, different philosophy. The CAVP ENUM interconnect standard is proposed
to be a zero-sum standard and to be revenue-neutral, neither costing an
adopter
nor generating revenue for the adopter. This is a critical factor in the
establishment of the standard. If the standard costs an adopter to implement
or leaves a backdoor open for an interconnect billing scam (I believe a few
of those have been uncovered in the US) then the standard is essentially 
stillborn. The nice thing about an ENUM based interconnect standard is that
all it costs to implement is time, as the physical plumbing is already
there.