iNum Calls 883 for Your Virtual Neighbours

The Inum website opened this week, bringing the promise of global telephone numbers for all, using the +883 country code. The initiative was created by Voxbone, who lobbied the ITU for the new code.

As we reported back in March, the initial focus is on VoIP interconnects, and a number of VoIP partners are already offering free calls to 883 numbers.

Rod Ullens, Voxbone CEO :

"We received our first iNum allocation and began testing '+883' numbers in remote networks," he said. "This month we begin a preview with several service providers, Jajah, Mobivox, Gizmo5, Ribbit, iotum, Rebtel, Voipbuster, Voxeo and Voipuser."

Voxeo are already offering free 883 numbers to all users of their Evolution development platform, allowing customers to make free calls into VoiceXML applications.

Ultimately it is hoped that all carriers will route 883 numbers either free-of-charge or at a very low price, to enable truly global voice, IM and presence without roaming charges.

Link: iNum

Reply from dibsmft on Nov 14, 2008 - 12:00 PM

I am not entirely sure how this works. Does this mean that Voipuser can have one or two 0844 numbers that connect to the iNUM network (and make a little money for Voipuser) that will then transfer the call to iNUMs? Or, Voipuser will issue iNUMs and route them as outgoing calls either to PSTN or voip. You see, I was wondering about Voipuser funding. I guess there will not be a lot of money in terminating the the first PSTN step since it will be "local" (or perhaps local in the sense of the 0844 series). On the face of it the numbers might be something "useful" that Voipuser can offer, in particular, to non-UK members.

Reply from mazilo on Nov 14, 2008 - 12:34 PM

If routing a call to +883 is free of charge, then it costs nothing for VoIPUser terminate such a call. The same should be true to route calls from PSTN to +883 to call VoIPUser members. This is like peerings, except an additional (free) termination from/to PSTN numbers. One thing that still puzzles me is how telcom operators around the world are going to support to terminate calls to/from +883 for free.

Reply from dibsmft on Nov 14, 2008 - 01:01 PM

Thats exactly it. From reading around I cannot quite figure out what is free and what is not. However, I rather doubt that my PSTN provider (Bell-Aliant) will carry many calls to or from my phone for "free". I think that if you call from a PSTN phone to an iNUM there will be a call charge of some kind (eg. "free" in Canada/US but some number of pence in the UK even if it is charged as a local call). I suspect the PSTN providers would want to make a fixed national charge for such calls. If the service is free both ways then how does Voipuser get income to pay for it operations? One of the articles on the Web (extract above) does say words to the effect that some carriers will make a small charge for the call. Another thing, how many numbers are there in this +833 series?

Reply from satphoneguy on Nov 14, 2008 - 03:48 PM

my understanding is that voxbone wishes for the large incumbent carriers to treat calls to +883 as local(or at least in country) for billing purposes. unless this is mandated by law it would be unlikely to actually happen. the +882 number series is international and has been around for years; but all the carriers charges massive fees for calling these numbers.

personally i believe a great first step would be for skype to allow calls and call forwarding free to the +883 number series as well as offer them as a 'skypein' option. skype would than finally be peering with the SIP world.

spg

p.s. is anyone aware of an open/authentication free gateway for dialing +883 numbers via SIP? perhaps sipbroker? really just a question of curiosity; but this would open up calling for users of all the smaller SIP networks they may not be direct members of the iNUM group.

Reply from tjardick on Nov 18, 2008 - 01:46 PM

Quote:

p.s. is anyone aware of an open/authentication free gateway for dialing +883 numbers via SIP? perhaps sipbroker? really just a question of curiosity; but this would open up calling for users of all the smaller SIP networks they may not be direct members of the iNUM group.

From your voipuser account

We are still working on the inbound but outbound is available for testing...

Regards,

Tj

Reply from dibsmft on Nov 18, 2008 - 11:08 PM

Mobivox seems to be starting to promote iNUM. Their FAQ now has an item about their charges etc.:

http://www.mobivox.com/help/FAQ/?t=34
http://www.mobivox.com/help/FAQ/?t=35

Don't get excited..... as you would expect ... calls not free.

They already have a large number of local (normal not iNUM) access numbers.

Reply from dibsmft on Nov 28, 2008 - 08:57 PM

I notice that Skype now list rates for calling iNUM at 1.2 p + vat per minute which is the same as a voip call to the UK. I assume that termination and delivery costs them very little since they deliver it to voip.

Reply from syedhussain15 on Nov 29, 2008 - 07:05 AM

Betamax group is showing 0.0 cost to Inum.

Reply from blakewright on Dec 24, 2008 - 08:26 PM

I am trying to figure out what the actual benefit of this is? It says in the announcement it's a step to connecting more "islands" of VoIP/PSTN/etc.. but it seems to be just another island in and of itself with two-stage dialing inbound and very uncertain rates and spotty connectivity in the cases where direct dialing is possible (another example of this UK 084x/087x/070xx personal number range when calling from outside the UK, complete crap shoot on rates or whether the call will go through). The inum page claims it's a "number you can keep for life" but they seem to be prefixed to specific service providers so how am I going to keep this number "for life" if I switch providers or the issuer goes under?

It seems to almost be an iteration of enum, with less actual benefits and poorer connectivity. I see that at least one place (Mobivox) wants to treat it as "collect call" service as well, in that case, why not just get an toll free (+1800 +44800) number instead? The rates on the Mobivox page are very unclear as they list different UK rates for incoming calls from 084x/087x/07xx and landline, huh? Why would it cost more to forward a call to me if someone is calling from their mobile vs calling from a landline.. ridiculous.

Maybe someone can explain something I am not seeing in this.

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