[VoIP] Porting phone number, what will happen with the POTS line?

Greg Blakely kb0tdf at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 28 17:43:22 CDT 2007 

With our company, ordinary disconnects are automated, and they happen at
whatever ungodly hour of the morning that our batch processes run.

But, in our case, an actual human being has to disconnect the line if it's
scheduled to be ported out.  And I **think** that an actual hour is conveyed
to us, so that we synchronize our disconnect with the porting away from us.

As far as other kinds of disconnects, one comes to mind: a disconnect for
non-payment.  In these cases, the customer is has dialtone, and can call
911, and they can call our office.  Calling to other locations plays a
fairly discrete "In order to use your telephone, please call our business
office at..."   It's somewhat like the recording a person new to a house or
apartment would get, but without the introductions, AND they get to call
911.  The number that goes out to the PSAP is the phone number that they had
(and still have, if they pay their bill) when their service was active.

As far as dialing 911 on a "silent" line, it's unlikely that you would be
routed to a PSAP, as they lack of a dialtone indicates that the switch is
ignoring the line, even if you have talk battery on it.  

Again, all this applies to the company I work for NOW.  Other places do
things differently, and my company has evolved over the years from adding
dial service in 1946 through various changes right up to the present.



 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: voip-bounces at ckts.info [mailto:voip-bounces at ckts.info] 
> On Behalf Of Jayson Smith
> Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 5:35 AM
> To: Voice Over IP Tandem for Analog Switches
> Subject: Re: [VoIP] Porting phone number,what will happen 
> with the POTS line?
> 
> Hi,
> Ok, now you have me curious. So, when a number is ported out, 
> and the customer picks up their old line, they get a message 
> talking about your company. No dialtone, no 911, etc. Does 
> this happen in the middle of the night on the day of porting, 
> like at least a lot of the big companies seem to like to do 
> with work scheduled ahead of time? Also, what happens to a 
> line where the customer disconnected service for any reason 
> other than porting? Do you provide dialtone and 911 in that 
> instance, and if so, what number do you send out? If you use 
> the customer's old (now disconnected) number, then what do 
> you do once that number is eventually reassigned?
> Sorry for all these questions, but I've always been curious 
> what happens at a disconnect. The only two experiences I've 
> had with disconnected lines were, one right here in 
> Louisville under Bell South, we moved somewhere else but kept 
> this house, so kept only one line. Mine got disconnected. 
> This was back in the days when we were on the 1AESS. What I 
> got upon pickup was the same noise you get if you have a 
> phone patch on the line in an on-hook state, E.G. the scanner 
> or whatever it's called, making weird irregular pulse-type 
> noises. Dialing didn't have any effect, although I did not 
> try dialing 911, for obvious reasons. Another time, when we 
> decided to move back here, we had our lines disconnected 
> there. This was Scottsville, KY, in early 1998, being served 
> by GTE, not sure what type of switch, as I wasn't into that 
> back then. The NPA-NXX is 270-237 if anyone really cares, but 
> be warned, there's at least one other phone company offering 
> service there now.
> Anyway, this was a digital switch, and the disconnected line 
> was live, but silent. No dialtone. Again, I didn't try 
> dialing 911 on this silent line.
> Jayson.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Greg Blakely" <kb0tdf at yahoo.com>
> To: "'Jayson Smith'" <ratguy at bellsouth.net>; "'Voice Over IP 
> Tandem for Analog Switches'" <voip at ckts.info>
> Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 1:15 AM
> Subject: RE: [VoIP] Porting phone number, what will happen 
> with the POTS line?
> 
> 
> > All companies have differing policies, but this is how we 
> work it at the
> > small independent ILEC that I work for.
> >
> > When a number is ported away from us, we receive 
> notification that the
> port
> > will happen on a specific day.
> >
> > The day of the cut, we program the number as disconnected, 
> but ported.  At
> > that point, we don't even let you have dial tone.  It 
> becomes a hot line,
> > going to a recording introducing the company, and asking 
> the caller to
> stay
> > on the line if they wish to order service.
> >
> > We don't provide dial tone specifically because we'd also 
> have to provide
> > 911 service.  And, if we provide 911 service, we have to 
> assign telephone
> > numbers to those "dead" lines, and then we'd have to send 
> that info to the
> > PSAP (public service answering point) so that they could 
> associate the
> > incoming number with an address.
> >
> > There are liability issues specific to the validity of 911 
> information
> that
> > our company is not willing to take on, to say nothing of 
> having to cough
> up
> > telephone numbers for those dead lines, in an age where 
> telephone number
> > blocks are hard to come by.
> >
> > When we port a number from the cable company to our switch, 
> we simply
> create
> > the number in the switch, and mark it as "ported in."  When 
> the LERG dip
> > information is updated, the calls start coming in.
> >
> > Same deal for when we port in cell phone numbers to landlines.
> >
> > When we get a customer back (a win-back), their 
> disconnected ported-out
> > number is first marked as plain old disconnected without 
> being ported out,
> > and then immediately built as a new customer from scratch.
> >
> > In any of these cases, ideally, the customer is without 
> service for a few
> > minutes.  And, after years of doing it, the telcos are 
> getting pretty good
> > at it.  The process is fairly seamless.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: voip-bounces at ckts.info [mailto:voip-bounces at ckts.info]
> > > On Behalf Of Jayson Smith
> > > Sent: Friday, July 27, 2007 8:38 PM
> > > To: Voice Over IP Tandem for Analog Switches
> > > Subject: [VoIP] Porting phone number, what will happen with
> > > the POTS line?
> > >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > >      As you know, we're switching to cable. We're getting one
> > > phone line's number ported over, and the cable people are
> > > scheduled to come Monday and set everything up. This
> > > obviously means the number should be released on Monday. The
> > > line in question is still active tonight (Friday) and I'm
> > > just wondering what will happen. A phone line can't have
> > > service without a valid number, right? So obviously at some
> > > point they'll disconnect it. Will we wake up Monday morning
> > > to that line being disconnected? We are served by Bell South
> > > on a #5ESS. Will there be a live line but no dialtone, live
> > > line and dialtone, but can't call anybody except 911, or
> > > what? I've heard that phone companies have to let you dial
> > > 911 on a disconnected line. Is this true?
> > > Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.
> > > Jayson
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > VoIP mailing list
> > > VoIP at ckts.info
> > > http://lists.ckts.info/mailman/listinfo/voip
> > > Project Web Page: http://www.ckts.info/
> >
> >
> 
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