VOIP Tech Chat → VOIP disaster question - technical

From a technical point of view:

First let me say that I realize the flooding in downtown Manhattan is unprecedented.

When I have a DID number, that number needs to terminate somewhere physically, right? Let us assume that location is rendered unusable by some disaster. Can those incoming DID lines be rerouted somewhere else?

I know redundancy of websites and SIP servers is important (and can handle outgoing calls), but what about the incoming/termination aspect? Isn't that tied to a geographic location and is there even an ability to reroute that in a disaster situation?

Can anyone who understand the termination side of this explain this? Obviously consumers are upset, but I want to know about the technical capabilities of VOIP in this regard.

It absolutely can be done.

Do all carriers do it? No.

When someone calls your home from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) it comes to your Regional Bell Operating Company's (RBOC's) Central Office (CO) building. Once there it is diverted to whichever Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC) your VoIP provider contracts with. That call literally passes via fiber optic link to the CLEC's server box. Then it's out from there via the Internet to your VoIP's office.

The problem with having no VoIP office operating is that trying to divert the call to another provider will require one of two things:
- The new provider may use the same CLEC, in which case the port should be simpler/faster because they just tell the box to send the call to a new host
- A different CLEC is used by your new provider so then both CLEC's are involved, one to release the route to your old provider and the other to assign it to your new one.

Now, AFAIK: If you have the second case then it's likely the old CLEC would resist the move until/unless the old provider said you were good to go. If you happen to be in the first case it MAY be easier, since the CLEC isn't losing the number, just assigning a new route for the calls.

Some interesting details here, »www.npac.com/number-port ··· np-works

I have a question. What would it take for the LRN of a number to be outside the number's rate centre?

Let's say I have a New York number and the switch serving my number is rendered inoperable due to a natural disaster. Why can't my carrier temporarily give my number (example) a Seattle LRN, and temporarily route my calls through their equipment in Seattle, until the problem in New York is solved?

In Canada the LRN can be any number in the same LIR, which is silly sometimes. For example, my Port Hardy customers have a Victoria LRN. That's a few hundred kilometers away and is most certainly usually long distance call by POTS standards.

In the US, I believe the LRN can be anywhere within the same LATA.

I don't believe there's any technical reason why a LRN can't be located anywhere else in a country, but I presume contractual constraints are in place to avoid having to route calls across the country free of charge.

I don't deal with routing at this level so everything I've written is based upon my observations and tidbits my carriers have shared with me. I'll happily yield to anyone who has more authoritative information on the matter.

 
When I first shopped in earnest for a cellphone in early 2007, I also investigated LNP, as the back of my mind even THEN was looking at ways to 'Cut The Proverbial Cord' of a more expensive BUSINESS Bell landline, and cellular seemed to be an option, while I knew almost nothing about VoIP at the time - and what I DID know - carriers like Vonage and PrimusTel Canada did not support my rate centre at all - nearest new number was - and today still is - Ottawa - not a local call from my community.

The CRTC docs available at that time were unclear in that they said that our small town was due to go live with LNP later that year (though we already had portability - but ONLY among alternate PSTN carriers - and I had used Allstream for that for a while), but when the time came, each cell provider had a different answer to whether or not they could port in that number, anywhere from "yes" to "no", and some others in between.

I even phoned NPAC (see above link), as I had learned that THEY manage all of the ports for North America, and they talked to me briefly, until it became evident that I was an end user rather than a ILEC/CLEC (they only talk to those), and then clammed up for the most part, but did offer me some useful info at the time, about how porting works, and how to leverage the politics.

One concept which emerged from that conversation and others around then (and which I expect that you already understand) is this :

NUMBER PORTING is nothing more than a more sophisticated form of the 'CALL FORWARDING' line feature, except that it is pre-programmed by agreement among phone companies, their customers, and NPAC.

NPAC has the database which tells the various phone companies' CO switches where to send each call intended for a ported number, and the whole process is transparent to the caller.

Regarding your main question : In theory, AFAIK, ILECs/CLECs could program a number to port outside of its rate centre / LRN, but I have been told that doing so is verboten. - If they ever change the rules on that, the programming of the routes for the calls would become more complex and prone to error, AND, if they ever DO offer it, I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut (wait, doughnuts ARE about a dollar now - Hmmmm....) that it would not be a FREE service.

VoIP providers seem to be more flexible in this regard - multiple DIDs, ring groups, SIP URI, etc.

So is re-routing due to a disaster the same as needing to port? The posts down thread of this seem to imply that. If that is the case, I cannot see how any VOIP provider whose CLEC is without power could handle this.

If the CLEC's box in your local CO is dead then yes, no porting can be done. That box needs to know where to send calls to and if it's down then not only won't you get calls because it can't send anything anywhere, it can't be told to send them to a new location, either.

Regarding re-routing v. porting, apples and oranges. Re-routing just means the calls are sent somewhere else, but they still go:
PSTN -> RBOC CO -> CLEC -> "Old" VOIP provider -> "New" VOIP provider.

A complete port goes:
PSTN -> RBOC CO -> (Maybe new) CLEC -> New VOIP Provider

 
It feels that way to ME, but I'll defer to the more experienced members on this.

One way or another, someone at a hidden (to us) computer terminal must reprogram something somehow.

= = = = = = = =

Famous Quotes : "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain !"

Ok, so it sounds like my thread was hijacked with people talking about porting, when I was asking about re-routing? It sounds like for proper disaster planning you would need the cooperation of the RBOC CO then?

Shouldn't they be able to re-route the incoming calls to a different location where there is backup equipment? Or is that too big of a bureaucracy to deal with in a timely manner? (ie; disaster already over)

 
I realize that it feels like a hijack.

If you hang tight until tonight, you might get a few more of the regulars/gurus (and some of the same ones as above) to weigh in and clarify the difference between the 2 processes.

But knowing what I know about big companies in general, unfortunately the answer to your last question may matter the most.

Sure, and a lot of providers do. The calls still go from the RBOC to the VOIP provider, but the provider gives them (and the equipment you have at your location) a new address to send calls to. So, instead of sending calls to New York, maybe they'd go to Santa Cruz. The same company is handling it, they just direct all the traffic to a different location. Some providers do that seamlessly, others less so, and others don't have that different location to send calls to.

In the ideal case such redirection should happen totally invisibly to the customers -- AFAIK Anveo is one company that works that way (but there are some others).

 
Come to think of it, that DOES sound a lot to me like what VOIP.MS said in their log that they did this week with calls which were normally registered to their NYC SIP server POP.

They apparently manually modified the DNS 'A' record for that POP to point to their SIP server POP in Seattle, and did the same for their website to some other POP.

It took a few hours for the revised DNS entries to catch up, but once it was completed, any customers who had not already fiddled with their own settings for VOIP.MS apparently did not HAVE to.

Re-pointing only works if just the SIP endpoint is down. For example, when Voicepulse had a generator explosion that resulted in the shutdown of their New York DC in 2008, they were able to work with their SIP trunk providers to re-direct that traffic to their San Jose DC. »[VoicePulse] Is Voicepulse offline for anyone else?

If the CLEC infrastructure goes down, then you're stuck. A good example of this is the XO outage that took out DIDs for VOIP.ms and every other provider using XO a couple years ago: »VOIP.ms DID DOWN for 4.5 hours so far

You can have SIP gateways in every single state of the union, but unless your CLEC has operational SS7 connections into the PSTN to take the calls that extra redundancy doesn't really mean much.

DID availability ultimately comes down to keeping the gear online in the rate center. Particularly relevant right now is that not all switching hardware is fully operational yet in east coast LATAs. In that case, porting from a carrier that is down to a carrier that is up may be the only way to get DID functionality back without waiting for normal service restoration process. (Of course, LNP activities will almost certainly take longer than service restoration)

There are several DID outage scenarios that are simply unavoidable, unfortunately.