scope:

The present document considers the use of non-numeric names such as "user@domain" for voice and other communications services (These names may include numerals but are different from pure numbers such as are used in E.164). It evaluates:

- The advantages and disadvantages of non numeric names compared to the more traditional use of numbers

- The schemes for non-numeric names that are available for use and the advantages and disadvantages of creating new schemes or of modifying existing schemes

- The implications for network design of using non-numeric names

The present document primarily considers the use of "Internet names" which is a general term for names of the form "user@domain" where "domain" is a "dot-string" resolvable by the Domain Name System. (Email addresses, SIP addresses and Network Address Identifiers are particular instances of Internet names.) The reason for focusing on the use of Internet names is that this is the only global system of names that is both well established and growing. The conclusions of this report are not however limited to Internet names but would apply to any naming scheme because they relate to the generic nature of names and not the particulars of the Internet naming scheme.

The present document takes account of human factors work carried out by ETSI-HF and in particular the specification work on the Universal Communications Identifier (UCI) even though it is not immediately relevant because it uses numbers for its unique identifier. Its contents are not at variance with the work on UCI, as the latter sits at a higher level. UCI seeks to provide a top level scheme with a single identifier for a given individual / persona, and via which a number of different communications services (each potentially with its own naming scheme and unique name for the individual) can be accessed. The present document considers the implications that arise when the naming schemes for those individual services are non numeric.

ENUM is not considered explicitly in the present document because ENUM is a proposed facility for relating E.164 numbers to non-numeric names and presupposes the existence of the non numeric names that are discussed here.