asterisk users - Feb 2005 - OT: How to "own" a telephone number?

See this sites:

http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/inr/nnp/index.html: ITU-T numbering plan
information
http://www.numberingplans.com/: Commercial provider of numbering plans
http://www.numberplan.org/: Commercial provider of numbering plans
http://www.wtng.info/: World Telephone Numbering Guide



se also:

E164.org is a directory of telephone numbers that can be reached over the
Internet.

The system works by publishing a DNS zone, 'e164.org', that can be used
by
various Internet applications including SER, Gnome Meeting and Asterisk. The
idea is to be able to map your phone number to an Email address, website,
VoIP addresses, etc. Check out our

http://www.e164.org/


 Max Rivera
Asterisk-Brasil

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <tmassey@obscorp.com>
To: <asterisk-users@lists.digium.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2005 5:44 PM
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] OT: How to "own" a telephone number?

> Hello!
>
> We are open to the possibility of changing our business telephone number
> shortly.  This will most likely be necessary due to a physical move,
> changing providers and a few other reasons.  However, we woud like this to
> be the *last* time we need to do this.  Ever.  No matter what.  Is that
> possible?
>
> On the Internet, you get this power with domain names.  We "own"
our
> domain name, so even if we move around the world, change connections,
> change Internet providers, grow, shrink, etc. we keep the same domain
> name.  This is a wonderful thing.
>
> Is there such a way to do this with a telephone number?  Is it possible to
> "own" a telephone number, such that even if we change telephone
providers
> or move from POTS to ISDN to T1 to VoIP and back a dozen times we can keep
> the same number?
>
> We would like to have this power with both a normal telephone number and a
> toll-free number.  According to our current provider (SBC in Michigan),
> the only way we can keep our current number is to convert it into a
> "virtual circuit" for almost $30/month (basically the same cost
as a
> "real" circuit), and then forward all calls from that line to
another
> number.  If the number is not local, we'd have to pay for long-distance
to
> that new number.  I know that with VoIP numbers we can move and change
> Internet connections, but if we change VoIP providers, we lose the number.
>  With a combination of the two, we could buy a virtual circuit from SBC
> and forward it to a local VoIP number that might change if we changed
> providers, but that seems like a fairly expensive way of doing it.  Is
> there an alternative?  And what if we didn't want to use VoIP, but
wanted
> to forward to a number that was long-distance?  Obviously, that gets
> expensive!
>
> Also, we're currently looking into toll-free service, but the
alternatives
> seem to be much the same.  At least nobody is telling us if there is a way
> to lock in a certain number even if we change providers.  They've all
told
> us that the number we receive is theirs, and if we change providers we
> lose the number.  I'm sure 1-800-Flowers, et. al. are not being held
> hostage like that...
>
> I would love to know what ideas you might have for getting a telephone
> number with the ability to stay with us even as the underlying
> infrastructure changes.  Is this even possible?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Tim Massey
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
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>

On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 20:02:03 +0100, Stefan Gofferje
<stefan@gofferje.homelinux.org> wrote:
> Maybe you have something like that too, where your customers don't pay
> too much and you don't pay too much. A nice side effect is that nobody
> will ever know that your companies HQ is in a lonely little village in
> the middle of nowhere because everybody thinks "they have a service
no.
> they must be huge"...
Actually, when I see those I think "they must be a small company
pretending to be a big company. Why should I pay more to call them
just because they want to hide behind a non-geographic number?".

Here in the UK (and I guess, elswhere), NGNs are a scam. The top-line
cost is the same as either a local or national call (OK so far), but
they don't qualify for discounts and don't count in inclusive or
unlimited packages, so actually they're much more expensive than a
standard geographic number.

On the flipside, if you generate enough call minutes inbound you can
get revenue share out of them. But that's for the big guys.....

Peter

tmassey@obscorp.com wrote:
> Also, we're currently looking into toll-free service, but the
alternatives
> seem to be much the same.  At least nobody is telling us if there is a way 
> to lock in a certain number even if we change providers.  They've all
told
> us that the number we receive is theirs, and if we change providers we 
> lose the number.  I'm sure 1-800-Flowers, et. al. are not being held 
> hostage like that...
They're not. Their number belongs to them, and is serviced by some LD 
carrier. If you call up a "traditional" carrier, and ask for a
toll-free
number, they will assign you one, and it _will_ be yours, and be 
portable(search for "resporg").

What you are seeing with these bargain providers is they have a clause 
in their contract that says they own the number, not you. It is a lock, 
and it ought to be illegal, but sadly, it's probably not. If you choose 
one of these companies that doesn't allow you to "port" or
"resporg"
your number out, that's your decision.  Just ask when you get the 
toll-free if they do allow resporg's out, and have them show you the 
wording in their contract that confirms it.

> I would love to know what ideas you might have for getting a telephone 
> number with the ability to stay with us even as the underlying 
> infrastructure changes.  Is this even possible?
A normal (not tollfree) number, if assigned to you by a RBOC, or most 
CLECs belongs to you, and you can port it to any other carrier who 
services your area(assuming they allow port-in's). I doubt you'll find a
LEC that will want to do you any better than what you've already seen 
with the call-forwarding, unless you have a significant amount of 
traffic and want to set up a point-to-point, frame, or other method of 
trunking the traffic.

A company I used to work for advertised in newspapers and yellowpages in 
hundreds of cities across the country. In most areas, they had a Remote 
Call Forwarding(RCF) that they advertised locally with, pointed to their 
toll-free number. I remember looking over some of their phone bills, but 
I can't recall if I saw usage charges on the RCFs.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Andrew Thompson
http://aktzero.com/
http://dev.asteriskdocs.org/

Hello!

We are open to the possibility of changing our business telephone number 
shortly.  This will most likely be necessary due to a physical move, 
changing providers and a few other reasons.  However, we woud like this to 
be the *last* time we need to do this.  Ever.  No matter what.  Is that 
possible?

On the Internet, you get this power with domain names.  We "own" our 
domain name, so even if we move around the world, change connections, 
change Internet providers, grow, shrink, etc. we keep the same domain 
name.  This is a wonderful thing.

Is there such a way to do this with a telephone number?  Is it possible to 
"own" a telephone number, such that even if we change telephone
providers
or move from POTS to ISDN to T1 to VoIP and back a dozen times we can keep 
the same number?

We would like to have this power with both a normal telephone number and a 
toll-free number.  According to our current provider (SBC in Michigan), 
the only way we can keep our current number is to convert it into a 
"virtual circuit" for almost $30/month (basically the same cost as a 
"real" circuit), and then forward all calls from that line to another 
number.  If the number is not local, we'd have to pay for long-distance to 
that new number.  I know that with VoIP numbers we can move and change 
Internet connections, but if we change VoIP providers, we lose the number. 
 With a combination of the two, we could buy a virtual circuit from SBC 
and forward it to a local VoIP number that might change if we changed 
providers, but that seems like a fairly expensive way of doing it.  Is 
there an alternative?  And what if we didn't want to use VoIP, but wanted 
to forward to a number that was long-distance?  Obviously, that gets 
expensive!

Also, we're currently looking into toll-free service, but the alternatives 
seem to be much the same.  At least nobody is telling us if there is a way 
to lock in a certain number even if we change providers.  They've all told 
us that the number we receive is theirs, and if we change providers we 
lose the number.  I'm sure 1-800-Flowers, et. al. are not being held 
hostage like that...

I would love to know what ideas you might have for getting a telephone 
number with the ability to stay with us even as the underlying 
infrastructure changes.  Is this even possible?

Thank you,

Tim Massey

On tor, 2005-02-03 at 20:02 +0100, Stefan Gofferje wrote:
[snip]
> Maybe you have something like that too, where your customers don't pay 
> too much and you don't pay too much. A nice side effect is that nobody 
> will ever know that your companies HQ is in a lonely little village in 
> the middle of nowhere because everybody thinks "they have a service
no.
> they must be huge"...
Actually, that is wrong. Any company that uses a 0180x is just single
minded and purely focused on the german marked. Funny as hell, these
numbers are simply blocked by nearly any international destination,
because it's too complicated to get them rated correctly. Often
companies using these numbers forget, that nobody outside the country
can call them anymore, unless they provide an alternative number.

I used to have a free fax-number in Germany, that I had to cancel, when
they switched everybody over on 01805 numbers. The number became useless
to me, because it only can be called inside Germany.

Sl?n leat,
Martin List-Petersen
Dublin, Eire 
(contact info on --> http://www.marlow.dk/)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tmassey@obscorp.com [mailto:tmassey@obscorp.com]
> Is providing the ability to assign numbers to people instead of to 
> locations really that hard?  Is it really so much easier for Internet 
> domains to do it?  Or is this just an oligarchy at work?  :)
A phone number is more analogous to an IP address than a domain name.  If
you move, you'll have a different ISP, and you won't get to keep your
old IP
address.  Your domain name, however, can be pointed to any IP address you
like.  It's that extra layer of indirection -- the domain being resolved to
an IP -- that lets Internet domains be moved so easily.

It's also partly a historical issue.  The phone system is layed out
geographically, because in the days of mechanical switches that was the only
reasonable way to do it.  Each area code represents a certain area of the
country, and each exchange (the first three digits of the local number)
represents a particular central office.  If you're outside the area covered
by that central office, there's no way to get a direct line run to you
(unless you use forwarding, or something like VOIP.)  Billing is based on
this, too.  If people could move numbers around willy-nilly, you'd never
know if you were making a long-distance call or not.