Paul Jakma wrote:
On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Andre Oppermann wrote:
We all know how well carrier phone number routing and number portability works, don't we?
EWORKSFORME (and everyone else here). Took a good bit of very firm pressure from ComReg, the telecoms wathdog/regulator here, to overcome negative reaction from the operators though.
We don't want them involved in Internet routing, do we?
(There's no such pressure which could be applied on IP operators, but same processes essentially could be applied at least for IP connectivity at national regulatory levels at least - trade /32's at INEX, the IX here and figure out billing. If only ComReg had the authority.. ;) ).
Do you have any idea how this works internally? Apparently not. Phone numbers are an interesting species. On a global level they are used for call routing. On a local level however it's not more than a DNS name mapping to some real on-net identifier. Unfortunatly anyone calling your ported mobile number from outside the mobile networks ends up with the number range holder (you former number range holder) who in turn has to forward the call to your current mobile operator. On a TDM network this works pretty OK as the quality parameters are standardized and fixed (64kbit transparent voice channel, call capacity, etc). Outgoing are not affected because the TDM network always sets up parallel in/out path's. The return channel for your outgoing call doesn't come back through your former mobile operator. Now compare this to the Internet and IP routing. See some little differences and diffculties here and there? Yea, I thought so. Conclusion: Applying the phone number portability to the Internet is broken by design. -- Andre