[188721] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: phone fun,
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Wed Apr 13 15:26:47 2016
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <20160413191550.15049.qmail@ary.lan>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 12:25:23 -0700
To: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
> On Apr 13, 2016, at 12:15 , John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
>=20
>>> Actually, it's probably both US and Canadian. When you call an 8xx
>>> toll free number, the switch uses a database to route the call to
>>> whatever carrier handles it, who can then do whatever they want. =
The
>>> provider for that number, Callture, is in Ontario but they can
>>> terminate the calls anywhere, and send each call to a different =
place.
>>=20
>> I was careful to pick a number on a Canadian company's website.
>=20
> Doesn't matter. In the NANP, toll free 8xx numbers are routed by
> carrier, not by geography, and it looks like this company handles
> traffic in the US, too. It's entirely possible that when you call
> that number during the day you get someone in Toronto, and when you
> call it at night, you get an answering service in the Phillipines.
>=20
>>> Also, in fairness, the US is about 90% of the NANP, so guessing that
>>> an 8XX number is in the US is usually correct.
>>=20
>> That's another way of saying that it's deliberately wrong 10% of the
>> time for pan-NANP prefixes. Better to say "I don't know" than to just
>> guess.
>=20
> Really, they're not assigned to locations, they're assigned to
> carriers. They can even be assigned to different carriers in
> different countries although that's not common.
>=20
> More to the point, saying "somewhere in the US", even if it's
> occasionally wrong, will not send nitwits with guns to a particular
> location. NANP geographical numbers can be located to a switch (give
> or take number portability within a LATA), but non-geographic numbers
> can really go anywhere. On the third hand, it's still true that the
> large majority of them are in the U.S.
Would you agree that 408-921 is a geographic number?
I guarantee you that there are phones within that prefix within =
US/Calif/LATA-1 and also some well outside of that, probably not even in =
the same country.
I will also guarantee you that those phones move locations quite =
frequently.
Owen
