We have a similar (but not the same) issue in Australia, where companies get 13/1300 numbers which cost end users the cost of a "local" call, now normally that is 30c (untimed) if you use the PSTN directly, however with the wide spread adoption of VoIP a lot of people are getting "local" calls at 10c (untimed) or less, yet due to regulatory frame work 13/1300 numbers are usually charged at 23-30c (untimed) which is a lot more then 10c, or if your call is short, even less on a per minute rate. There are other issues related to VoIP and non-geographical numbers, but cost is heavily influencing things as well. I will point out that businesses that own 13/1300 numbers are still charged per call (and per minute in some cases) so it's not like they can't gain here by publishing their geographical numbers as well (unlike the 08 issue).

So myself and others have started building up a database of non-geographical and the geographical counter parts and storing the results in www.e164.org. e164.org is normally used to connect VoIP calls directly over the internet (this occurs via DNS lookups and pulling VoIP URIs from DNS), avoiding the whole PSTN thing altogeather, however in this case due to apathy in the business community (to save themselves money) we are trying to provide an alternative.

We are also working on scripts for Asterisk (free software PBX www.asterisk.org) to use the information from e164.org to re-route calls if possible.

Is our current work something that would also be of benefit to people in the UK with respect to 08 numbers?

At this stage I don't even have a proof of concept, but the database we've started collecting data for now has about 400 records, not a lot but a start.

VoIP isn't that difficult to get your mind around if you are familiar with computer software in general (extensive stuff needs to be linux centric) and networking.

SIP which is one of the most widely used protocols (H323 is still the most widely due to telco internal and interconnections but thankfully it's dying off and all new deployments are SIP based), and of course skype, but skype doesn't give you much control and you're forced to leave a computer on to make/receive calls, even external devices are usb based. Where as with SIP (being a standard) you can pick and choose the devices you want, most are ethernet based so you can even do power over ethernet rather then needing bulky wall plugs etc.

In any case with enum.164 it's based around DNS (to the horror of many purists), but it's very scalable and a very proven technology for this sort of thing and generally works very well, to give you an example, yesterday I added the local numbers of a taxi co-op, with 13 numbers the calls can be routed to different geographical numbers depending which exchange the calls go to/through, this taxi co-op has over 300 different companies across the country, and so a lookup will return something like:

To run this yourself all you need to do is: dig 8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org naptr

Australia's country code is +61 (UK is +44), and the phone number is +61131008, which like the 0870 code in the UK is difficult to call outside the country. To turn this into a DNS lookup, you simply reverse the ordering (like a reverse IP DNS lookup), add dots between the digits and ask for NAPTR records.

[code]
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org.      IN      NAPTR

;; ANSWER SECTION:
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61898215000!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61898444444!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61898482295!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61898512332!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61899213800!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61899271555!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61899481331!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61242299311!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61242377505!" .
8.0.0.1.3.1.1.6.e164.org. 579   IN      NAPTR   300 99 "u" "E2U+VOICE" "!^.*$!TEL:+61243236444!" .
[/code]

Area codes in Australia are 1 digit numbers, geographical area codes are 2,3,7,8, mobile phones are 4, special services (toll free, and local rate calls) start with 1 or 5 and premium services start with 9.

In the above example there are a number of taxi companies from different areas and the plan is to be able to locate the nearest one with a script based on how close the number is to your own number. I notcied with some of the UK numbers listed in the search the same thing exists in the UK and so once I have the Australian stuff done the UK stuff should work exactly the same.

www.e164.org was originally setup to store SIP URIs, which look very similar to email addresses, so people could make calls over the internet to each other for free without needing to use a common service, many providers will let you call other users for free on their own systems, but few if any have peering arrangements to call users with other providers. With e164.org you list your own phone number and then instead of people needing to know yet more numbers they can simply call your normal phone number to be connected.

For those familiar with linux and want to have a crack at all this, you can either start with www.trixbox.org, self installing ISO, or simply get asterisk and I have sample copy & paste configs on my website, www.asterisk.net.au which I setup because I was annoyed with the lack of documentation for beginners.