Today I was having trouble connecting with Ooma to certain phone numbers in a particular area code and the Customer Support wrote back that they fixed it by "making a route change".
What does it mean to "make a route change" anyway?
The symptoms were that I could call certain numbers in a specific area code from either my landline or cell and they'd connect; but when making those same calls from the Ooma VOIP, they would ring but never connect.
What does it mean when Ooma support changes a route for me? I talked a friend in Pennsylvania into buying the Ooma Telo at Costco for $100 and she's had it for a week and said it wouldn't call a certain telephone number in the 570 area code which she calls all the time.
I tested that number with my landline, and with my Ooma, and with my cell (all in California): Guess what?
She was right. So I called Ooma, and after about an hour of uselessness (e.g., press *98 for a different codec), got to third tier support, who asked me for some sample calls that they could time stamp accurately.
Then, a day later, I received this email from Ooma (and the calls now work):
quote:On 06/25/2013 06:39 PM, Ooma Care Support wrote: Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response. Subject Call completion: Outbound to some numbers in PA Response (Rechelle) 06/25/2013 06:39 PM We have made a route change that should correct this. Could you please retest and let us know if you still have any issues calling
15708978200 & 15708979077. We`re looking forward to your response. Please write me back if you have further questions and I will respond to you as quickly as possible. Thank you for choosing Ooma!
My questions: Q1: What does it mean to "make a route change"?
The company we were calling says lots of people can't get through to them, and they're not all on Ooma. Q2: What would be the "real" underlying problem?
Answer 1:
1) VoIP service providers commonly use a few carriers, or companies that have equipment to connect to the PSTN and route calls. The carrier they were using for your calls was not working properly so they are going to use a different one instead.
2) It sounds like users on specific carriers can't call this number. There are many reasons why this could be. In the past I've seen it happen when a number was recently ported, and the port was only partially successful. Calls from some carriers were routed to the old carrier (which failed) and calls from other carriers were routed to the new carrier (which worked).
Answer 2: Another reason may be if the number is in a high-cost rate center and/or CLEC- some carriers may refuse to connect calls there. Classic example would be the so-called "free" conference call services.
Answer 3: Think of the routing like the roads you drive to get somewhere: there are many roads you can take, but if the one you pick turns out to be closed, you take another.
Answer 4: If you had told us 570-xxx rather than just 570 more info might have been available.
There are many rural phone companies in that area, such as The North-Eastern Pennsylvania Telephone Company.
Another is Commonwealth Telephone which now is owned by Frontier (itself no great shakes).
Rural phone companies may be harder to connect to (unlike some other rural hookups) and may have higher interconnection fees.
Answer 5: The full phone numbers are in the quote from Ooma Care Support. According to freerevcell.com, they're both with Commonwealth Telephone.
Answer 6: Confirmed. Well, I'm not surprised. Problems getting through to Commonwealth (Frontier) have been documented by several people including myself....
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