Provider Change

Changing the Provider of an ENUM Domain

Each registered ENUM domain falls within the responsibility of one of our members. The name of the member in charge of administration is stored in our database along with the domain data. Since the domain itself leads to a contractual relationship between the domain holder and DENIC, it is possible to change providers at any time. In this case, the DENIC member in charge of administering the domain will often change as well. Please keep in mind that the one-year registration period of your ENUM domain will restart when a provider change takes place.

So if you change your provider, the DENIC member entered in the domain data as being in charge of administration must also be updated in most cases. In order to enable such change to be carried out and to ensure that the domain remains registered without any interruption, DENIC has set up a standardized procedure for changing providers (CHPROV).

Provider Change Procedure

1. Check the terms of your contract with your current provider and inform him/her that you wish to move to a different provider. Then, tell your new provider to take charge of administering the domain.

2. The new provider must now check that the requested provider change has really been initiated by you as the domain holder or your administrative contact (Admin-C) and not by an unauthorized third party. Since the provider change concerns an ENUM domain, the new provider must further verify that the domain holder is also the legitimate holder (assignee) of the corresponding telephone number; this process is called validation. Once this step has been taken, the new provider (or the DENIC member with whom the provider works together) will submit the formal request for a provider change to DENIC.

3. DENIC sends your provider change request for confirmation to the member currently administering your domain. This member now also checks whether you really want to change, i.e. whether it has received a corresponding notification from you as the domain holder or – if the member is not itself your current provider – from your provider. If the answer is “yes”, the DENIC member returns your acknowledgement (ACK = acknowledged) to DENIC and if the answer is “no” he/she returns your rejection (NACK = not acknowledged) to DENIC. If DENIC receives no answer within three working days from the member who has been in charge so far, it sends out a REMINDER. If there is no reaction to this reminder, DENIC takes it as confirmation that the member who has been in charge so far recognizes the initial check by the future provider as correct. The provider change will then be carried out and the data entries will be updated. At present, the provider change will have been completed after five days at the latest in cases like this.

If there is any doubt, the member/provider will not confirm the change since it has no knowledge that the domain holder actually wishes to change - there might be a misunderstanding or even misuse. In such cases, the member/provider will try to contact you to seek clarification. Experience has shown that communication problems may arise at this point of the procedure. Typical situations are:

• You have given notice to your provider, but the provider has not yet informed the responsible DENIC member.
• You have forgotten to give notice.
• The DENIC member has been unable to contact you.

Once things have finally been cleared up, the DENIC member can still acknowledge the change that has been rejected initially, and the data of the member in charge will be updated immediately.

Whether or not your ENUM domain is accessible during an ongoing provider change procedure does not depend on DENIC, but on the agreements that you, as the domain holder, have entered into with your providers (both the old one and the new one). This is because you get all the services associated with the ENUM domain from your provider. If your old provider ceases to provide these services before the new one starts to provide them, your domain will remain continuously registered in your name, but it might not be accessible or cannot be used as intended.