One document matched: draft-jennings-dispatch-npa-00.txt

Network Working Group                                        C. Jennings
Internet-Draft                                                     Cisco
Intended status:  Informational                             July 4, 2010
Expires:  January 5, 2011


                      Numeric Provider Alias (NPA)
                     draft-jennings-dispatch-npa-00

Abstract

   This draft proposes a modification to
   draft-lawrence-dispatch-sipforum-provider-alias (PAN).  The PAN draft
   proposes a mechanism for a phone to take a short numeric identifier
   that identifies a phone service provider and look it up in DNS to
   find the address of the configuration server for that service
   provider.

   The problem with PAN is that it requires a specific organization,
   sipforum.org, to become a registrar for the PAN.  This will add
   signifiant cost to obtaining them as the expected quantity of PAN is
   low.  This draft proposes a minor modification to the PAN draft.
   Instead of using the sipforum as a new registrar, why not just use
   the registrars that already exist for DNS names.  This ensure a long
   term stable unique allocation of PAN with the advantages of not
   having the IETF allocating a monopoly to one particular organization.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 5, 2011.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.



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1.  Proposal

   Currently section 3.1 of the PAN draft proposes to construct a domain
   name from PAN by taking the PAN and prepending it to the string
   ".pan.sipforum.org".  So a PAN of 555 would result in a NAPTR lookup
   of the "555.pan.sipforum.org".  In the following sections, some
   alternative proposal are made.

1.1.   Simple Single TLD

   The domain is formed by prepending "pan" and appending ".org" to the
   PAN so the PAN of 555 would result in a domain of "pan555.org".
   Organization get a PAN by just getting the domain name in the normal
   manner.

1.2.  Multiple TLD

   The domain is formed by prepending "pan" and appending a TLD based on
   the first digit of PAN where if the first digit is 1, then " .com" is
   used and if the digit is 2, then ".net" and so on.  So the PAN of
   2555 would result in a domain name of "pan2555.net".

1.3.   Encoded URI

   The domain is formed by treating each pair of numeric digits as base
   10 encoded version of the upper case character in the domain string.
   So a domain iii.ca would be converted to upper case III.CA which is
   ascii characters 73 73 73 46 67 65 so the PAN would be 737373466765.

1.4.  Compressed encoded URI

   A small table of of common occurring sequences of characters in
   domain names is created and used as a dictionary for a simple way to
   compress any URI into a decimal string.






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2.  Discussion

   The above proposal represent a range of complexity and generality.
   Some will result in larger PAN numbers than others and some result in
   more or less code.  Some can only using a single TLD (Top Level
   Domain) while others could work with many or all TLDs.

   User clearly have no problem with 10 to 15 digit long phone numbers
   so it's hard to see a 15 digit PAN being a problem for a user to
   enter.  All of these have significant advantages over allocating
   sipforum.org as the root of the registration.  The processes for
   ensuring uniqueness of normal DNS names are well understood as well
   as managing changes in ownership, resolution of disputes, and so on.
   Replicating all this work inside of the a new organization is
   expensive.  Some casual and likely uninformed estimates have put it
   in the range multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars to run over a
   a few year time scale.  There is unlikely to be more than 1000
   domains using PANs if they are expensive.

   It would be nice to have a single digit checksum on the PAN.  This
   can significantly improve the user experience when an entry error is
   made.

   Making a minimum allowable length for PAN will help reduce land grabs
   of very short PANs.

   A generalized numeric encoding for URI will likely have widespread
   uses as devices with very limited user interfaces become more common.
   For example, some digital clocks today make the user set the time
   using a single button.  It's not fun but it's possible.  Devices like
   the Apple iTV have a nice user interface for entering a multi digit
   number using a remote with just 6 buttons.


Author's Address

   Cullen Jennings
   Cisco
   170 West Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA  95134
   USA

   Phone:  +1 408 421-9990
   Email:  fluffy@cisco.com







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