3NUMLabs

Operators

Run an operator

The protocol is designed for many independent operators, the way email and the phone network have many. Today there is one, and it is ours. This page is written for the second: what an operator runs, what it must be accredited for, and what we owe you before you can do it without asking us. Looking for a phone service rather than the infrastructure? See Haiven Mobile.

What an operator runs

  • Relay Nodes

    Store-and-forward for sealed envelopes, prekey distribution, call setup. Permissionless; the reference implementation runs on Cloudflare Workers and you can run it as is or replace it.

  • A Gateway Node

    The bridge to the phone network: call and text termination, number registration and porting, and the regulatory obligations of a real telephone service in your country. This is the regulated part, and where your carrier relationships live.

  • A registrar identity

    The identity whose signed records attest which numbers are in its custody for which subscribers. Every binding on the network names its registrar.

  • A client, or someone else's

    Any client that follows the protocol can reach any other, so an operator may ship its own app or serve subscribers who use one built by somebody else.

  • Whatever makes it a business

    Plans, billing, eSIM, screening, support. None of that is protocol, and none of it is in the open repositories, by design.

  • Reference code

    The Relay Node and clients are public today. The Gateway Node and the agent runtime are built and running, and come out with the next release.

    What is public

Accreditation

Who may vouch for a number

Phone numbers are administered centrally in the real world, by numbering authorities and carriers. A decentralized overlay on top of them is tangled with that reality whatever it pretends, so the protocol does not pretend. Which registrars may attest number bindings is governed by an accreditation root.

Today 3NUM Labs holds that root, in the same way that Bluesky runs the did:plc directory for AT Protocol: a pragmatic, mildly central starting point, anchored on facts the numbering system already records, with the specification written for hand-off to neutral or consortium governance later. A registrar that provably mis-binds numbers can be de-accredited.

The accreditation registry itself is designed and not yet built; the alpha names a single registrar.

The operator playbookIn progress

Could a stranger stand this up today?

The document that walks the whole path, accredited registrar, gateway and relay, numbers, an app on the SDK, is being written. Until it exists the honest answer is "with our help, yes; alone, not yet". We publish this page anyway so the gap is visible, and so the first person who wants to try can tell us what is missing.

The first operatorLive

Haiven Mobile

Owned and operated by 3NUM Inc. · United States and Canada numbers

A private phone number, an app, and AI call and text screening built on ATSMS. Calls between members are encrypted end to end; calls to anyone else bridge through Haiven's Gateway Node.

haiven.mobile

Talk to us before the playbook is finished.

If you run telecom infrastructure, or you want to, write to [email protected] with “Operator” in the subject. We would rather hear from a second operator early than polish the playbook in private.