Trust services provider VeriSign (News - Alert) announced today that AOL (News - Alert) will use its ENUM Data Access Service to deliver instant messaging traffic to wireless devices within North America.

 

ENUM bridges next-generation IP communications to traditional telephony by providing a critical framework for mapping and processing network addresses. But its uses go well beyond voice. By transforming the telephone number into an access-agnostic address, it can then be used by a variety of devices and applications such as text messaging, email and/or location-based services – as well as voice.

 

In addition to telephone number mapping, the service also requires a real-time check to determine if the number has been ported to another service provider. The VeriSign ENUM services enable secure interconnection of networks, devices and applications across different access technologies, easing the introduction and expanding the reach of multimedia services and IP voice communications.

 

Of the 42 million active AIM users that make up the largest instant-messaging community in the world, approximately 10 million people using AIM on their cell phones, according to AOL. Those users in aggregate send an average of 30 million messages per day.

 

“AOL’s use of the VeriSign ENUM Data Access service is a strong statement of the power of ENUM in action and VeriSign’s ability to deliver on new technologies for the convergence of all types of communications,” said Bill Wolfe, senior vice president of communications at VeriSign.

 

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Robert Liu is Executive Editor at TMCnet. Previously, he was Executive Editor at Jupitermedia and has also written for CNN, A&E, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. For more articles, please visit Robert Liu's columnist page.

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