I'm a little unclear as to what you nean by "foreign" listing.
>Telephone directories are open to all LECs, and the ILEC has to allow
>CLECs to populate their listing database and give the numbers out to
>411 callers. If you're looking to put a Las Cruces number into the
>Las Cruces directory, it doesn't sound foreign to me. It does mean
>that somebody has to know how to enter it.
That's true. However, none of the telephone companies that I have dealt with [past or present] seem to acknowledge this.
It sounds to me like you've got two screwed-up companies making up tales.
Not quite. With DEX Media, that is three. Add in Carolina Net's CLEC [whomever they are], and that is four.
Carolina Net is not a New Mexico CLEC. It is a parasitic VoIP
>operator, meaning that it provides voice services over other
>providers' broadband services. There's nothing wrong with that, but
>as a non-CLEC, they don't have the right to port numbers, put entries
>in phone books, or draw blocks of their own numbers from NANPA. They
>do all of that via CLECs, from whom they purchase wholesale services.
>In order to provide you with a (ported) New Mexico number, they have
>to have a CLEC in New Mexico provide them with service. I don't know
>who they use, but let's say for the sake of argument that it's Level
>3, which does operate there and which provides wholesale service to
>VoIP operators. In order to port your number, Carolina Net would pass
>the request to Level 3, who'd enter the port. This is fairly routine, >and it worked.
I've since had another conversation with Carolina Net. Apparently, they have more than one CLEC in New Mexico.
The lady who is handling my listing request is getting my service changed to their other CLEC. She is going to try getting it done through the other CLEC. Then she is going to request the listing again.
As a CLEC, Level 3 has the right to put entries into the 411/DEX
>database. But does Carolina Net have this process up and running
>with Qwest? I'm guessing that the bulk of VoIP customers do not want
>their number listed, so the three-vendor process is not totally
>routine. It may be that Carolina Net is set up better to deal with
>with ATT and VZ than with Q, through the same or different CLECs.
>All of this information is missing from the report.
Carolina Net made it clear that they can't arrange this with AT&T and Verizon. I had to make the listing directly with AT&T or Verizon.
They charged me anywhere from two to four dollars per month. But they billed me annually.
Yes, Qwest can be VERY hard to deal with; I've been involved in some
>New Mexico cases against them recently.
Not only Qwest, but Verizon and AT&T as well.
Did that case have anything to do with them shutting off service to Zianet? That was big news here in New Mexico recently. An enormous number of Zianet customers were out of service because of it.
Apparently, Zianet was delinquent with their bill to Qwest for their Internet connectivity. So Qwest shut them down. After a lot of mulling and getting a check to them, the service was restored. But after some regulatory hassle, Qwest agreed to some additional notice before they would cut them off again.
DEX Media's legal status in an interesting question -- Qwest sold them
>the directory business, but I'm guessing that the white pages database
>is still based on Qwest's. I don't know whether DEX is required to
>directly deal with end users. ...
How else would they do it? Every time that Qwest adds a new customer number to the directory assistance database, they'd have to send a copy over to DEX. It would make more sense to just give them a copy of the directory assistance database once per year (when they publish the directory). It would make no sense for DEX to be tracking each listing every time it happened.
Yes, but "competing provider" generally refers to CLECs, not the
>pVoIPos directly. So Carolina Net has to get their CLEC to fix it,
>and their CLEC might not be set up for this.
Nowhere in that rule did it say it had to be done through the CLEC. It says they must accept the listings of the CLECs [period]. It doesn't specify whether the listing is made by the customer or by the CLEC. As with AT&T and Verizon [after getting the PSC in each respective state to come down on them], the listing was made directly with the ILEC (AT&T or Verizon).
It would be better to do it that way. If I decide to change providers {as I could at any time}, then I wouldn't run the risk of having the LEC delete my listing when I changed from one provider to the other.
I had directory listing problems for several years after porting two
>numbers. The porting-in carrier (Media One -> ATTB -> Comcast) had
>provisions for "bonding" their order process with the NYNEX -> BA-> VZ
>directory, but it burped on non-standard listings (a request for name
>without address on the secondary number). I eventually got it fixed
>when I found a Comcast guy who could actually do a manual LSR (Local
>Service Request, the process by which a CLEC enters line-side requests
>into an ILEC operational support system). Of course had I not known
>about LSRs, I wouldn't have known to go around the usual order-takers,
>whose highly automated system didn't quite work as it appeared to.
I wonder if there is anyone out there that can make foreign listings with any telephone company? I would think they could negotiate a deal. They could take the listing from the customer, list it with any carrier, and bill the customer for the annual listing fee.
VoIP is a low-margin business, designed for minimal manual
>intervention, so they might be unprepared to deal with a directory
>listing in an area they don't do much business in. If you can find
>out the actual CLEC, that would help.
I guess I could ask my contact at Carolina Net if they could tell me who is the CLEC that they are currently using for my account. I'll shoot her an email any minute.
Regards,
Fred