How does a "Trunked" line between two 5ESS CO's work? [telecom]

It's almost certainly a "Remote Call Forwarding" service, which means the HSTNTXHODS0 office is re-routing calls that were intended for the

She can install call forwarding on the 281-496 number, and forward calls to the desired destination. *Some* LEC companies offer "Follow Me" service, which enables customers to change the "forward to" number from a separate location, but that's not very common, so she'd have to re-route calls before leaving home, and could only change the forward-to number after she got back.

Google Voice and other alternative service providers will sell her service that rings different destination numbers in sequence, i.e., if

If the service is offered in the HSTNTXBUDSO office, she can order "RingMate" (it might be called something else in your area) service, which will assign a second phone number to the 281-496-yyyy line, and provide a distinctive ringing code when the *new* number is dialed. For example, if her current number is 281-496-1234, she could have 281-496-2345 added to the line, and calls made to the -2345 number would have a distinctive ringing code.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it is: RingMate is just another name for party line service, which allowed multiple families to share the same overhead wire when copper was in short supply. The only difference is that both numbers terminate at the same location, namely your daughter's house.

Of course, after getting the new number installed, she'll have to have the Remote Call Forwarding service on the 713-467 number changed so that it points to her new home number. She might find it more convenient to simply installs a second phone line, since that will provide for a separate bill for her "business" calls.

Bill

The problem now is that if some one calls her on the 713-467 number, she cannot respond to the caller using the 713-467 (unless she uses a spoofing service). She has to use the 281-496 number. A customer receiving her return call may check their Caller ID and, not recognizing the number, does not answer the call.

I think installing a second phone line for business is the way to go. Her concern is that the current business number has been in use for many years and includes a listing in the Yellow Pages. If she gets a new business line, she will have to cancel the old business line. Granted she will eventually appear in the YP with the new number but there will be confusion for some time. But that solves the problem of her being able to return the call using the same line that the call came in on.

Ideally, she would like to have a private line so that 713-467 rings directly in her house and she could return calls using the 713-467. While that may be possible, it is probably not economically feasible.

Arnie

Questions:

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Her choices are to either pay for a foreign exchange line, which would literally connect her new home to the "old" phone number on a dedicated circuit, or to find a service to which she can port the 713-467 number, and which will provide a two-way "lookalike" service which gives her a virtual foreign exchange.

I know users who ported numbers to Vonage, which allows them to move their office wherever their router is. There are many companies in this market niche: a search for '"virtual foreign exchange" telephone' will show you many firms that offer "virtual office" services.

HTH.

Bill

Lots of imprecise usage here muddle what's going on.

A) I agree it sounds as if she got sold RCF. That has several issues. She is likely paying way too much for it, and may be paying per call or minute as well.

B) She could, for some outragous amount, get "Foreign Exchnage" service. In that case, she gets a actual set on her desk that rings in and dials out on her 713-467 DN. But be sitting down; it's typically priced as if a cable crew has to lay pairs the whole route, as in centuries past.

Choices that may be viable all utilize LNP, transferring her number to a more flexible service. This might be a VOIP carrier such as "MagicJack" or Vonage or less controversial names. It also might be a cell carrier.

If she can get her service moved to a prepaid cell, she can /THEN/ [port] it again, to Google Voice.

Evidently nobody remembers that Ma Bell has been extracting money from customers for years, calling it "Number Portability."

You can move anywhere and demand your "number" be ported to your new location.

We asked for and received this service when moving a machine shop from one C.O. area to another.

You pay for it, so you can certainly demand it.

It's LNP, Local Number Portability. You can certainly port your number among COs in the same rate center. Telcos will not port your number from one rate center to another; in many cases it isn't even technically possible.

I concur with the people who suggest porting the number to a VoIP carrier who doesn't care where your VoIP box is. My "portable" number is a little box with an Ethernet plug on one side and a phone plug on the other. It has an Ithaca NY number but it spent a pleasant year in England, same number, worked fine.

R's, John

This leads me to a question about the future, and I'm not sure that I know how to ask it clearly, so please bear with me.

I wonder, given that the VoIP an Cellular systems are gradually divorcing exchange codes from "their" rate centers, at what point the existing "V&H" billing concept will break down?

The Cellular networks, which routinely forward calls from a "home" CO in Maine to a cell tower in New Mexico, have formed a - I'm not sure "bypass" is the right word - parallel path that logically duplicates the "last mile" connection to a cell cite in the traditional network view, but have replaced that "last mile" with a "last cloud" or "last point where the traditional view holds true".

In like manner, VoIP offerings have replaced last mile circuits with a sort of workaround, which allows Ma Bell to "deliver" a call to a Rate Center, but then replaces any physical circuit with a virtual connection that can be, literally, anywhere.

So, here's the question: will some other method of distance-sensitive billing take the place of V&H? I suppose that cellphones could be programmed to deliver their latitude and longitude when connecting a call, but I doubt there's any such capability in VoIP devices.

And, come to think of it, is the V&H concept so ingrained in the network's design that it can't be replaced? I think cell plans come with long distance service included because the cellular providers realized that it costs more to bill for it than to provide it as part of a monthly package, but will the costs of providing it ever return to a distance-based model?

Bill

Just to confirm: when you make a call using your VOIP box, does the Ithaca number show up on the recipient's Caller ID no matter where you make the call from?

Yes. What other number would it show? The connection from my box back to the rest of the phone network is over whatever IP network it's plugged into, which doesn't have a phone number.

R's, John

An exception seems to be FIOS customers of some ilk. A friend moved from A to B, and then soon after to C; all in Montgomery Cty MD and in three different CO's.

Ma allowed him to keep his A directory number at B & C locations. Now there are 2-3 different offerings for "phone service" over FIOS; I don't know which he had at the time. One is an unregulated ""VOIP"" called Digital Voice.

Given that even the regulated FIOS phone customers are served by one regional CO; from a facilities standpoint, it makes no difference.

Different CO or different rate center? As I recall, Maryland is a crazy quilt of overlapping and inconsistent rate centers, which have very little to do with the actual wiring to COs.

R's, John

I believe distance-insensitive but service responsive charges will become more normal. Outside the USA most mobile billing is caller pays, there are also various national rates, from free (0800/1800 etc.) to premium. The inclusion of basic call minutes in rental packages will continue. This may require regulatory change, as voice becomes "yet another service".

Some economists hold that clear pricing signals related to underlying costs produce the best results. If the cost of billing small amounts of usage charges becomes excessive and the dominant costs are fixed that implies rental. This has in the past been implemented at the wholesale (UK FRIACO) as well the consumer level.

The cost of bulk long distance transmission will continue to fall also than of packet based switching. There will continue to be, due to competitive and regulatory pressure, reductions in call charges.

Given that most billing is now done away from the exchange there is a cost to maintaining the source destination charging matrices in billing systems. Some modern billing platforms are generic and telecoms style usage billing has to be added on. So if regulators can be persuaded, distance based charges in domestic networks could disappear. Telecoms companies are very good at micro charging and this may be used in other ways, including high cost international routes.

I have a view of the end game for voice; IP (internet protocol) packet based, converted to analogue at the last moment, sharing infrastructure with data services. The demise of the local exchange replaced by customer located Analogue Termination Adaptors and IP phones, supported by a few soft switches. Quality provided by QOS measures and VPNs at the IP and Ethernet level.

In Europe with multiple service providers competing on price, service and brand.

How we get from now to the future and is not yet clear. How we pay is also not obvious but I believe it will be mostly rental, to cover the high proportion of costs which will be fixed charges.

Mobile is another game as the air interface is relatively expensive and usage charging makes sense, also encourages the use of lower cost technology such as Wifi hot spots. We have had a proposal from Indian regulators to extend the roaming caps in Europe to India and visa versa.

John

"never."

What will happen is that it will become more and more 'irrelevant' ad 'immaterial' to most people's use.

Say that someone is using their Los Angeles Cell phone in NYC. Now postulate that somebody on a NYC landline calls that cell phone. It goes via the -caller's- choice of IXC to the 'home' exchange of that cell phone -- in L.A. -- with the caller paying for all that mileage, per V&H for, the origin/destination call centers. Then it hops on the

"private peering agreements" with -direct- connections between various wireless providers -- and *no* 'usage-based' "settlements -- allows the wireless providers to bypass the usage-based "settlement" cost calculations, and allows wireless providers to offer 'no additional cost' calling to

-other- wireless providers customers as well as for 'on-net' terminations. V&H still exists, but it is simply 'irrelevant and immaterial' for these calls.

Nope. When the pricing model for the -underlying- transport is "distance insensitive', and is entirely paid for by fixed 'access' charges, then 'distance sensitive' billing is effectively rendered obsolete for calls over that transport.

V&H _is- ingrained in the existing wireline billing model because of the requirement to 'share' the *per*call* revenues among the various carriers' that handle parts of the call, IXC compensation is based on the 'miles' that the IXC carries the call. `

Also, 'distance-based' billing gets -insanely- complicated, when either party is _not_ at a fixed location. How do you handle the billing when the call changes from 'intra-LATA' to 'inter-LAT', or 'in-state' to 'inter- state', or vice versa? How about 'local' to 'international'?

Having to add all those complications to the existing billing and, yeah, the cost of distance based billing exceeds any reasonable revenues.

As the billing model changes -- as it -has- with most wireless and VoIP service -- and where there is a fixed charge for 'connectivity' and (maybe) a minimal per-minute charge for handling the 'last-mile' for calls that terminate 'off network', V&H simply becomes increasingly irrelevant for 'alternative' provider services.

The likelihood of providers being able to 'sell' a return to distance-based pricing to customers is 'improbable', at best.

Robert Bonomi