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Solutions
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TransNexus Ready for LERG
Death The LERG, or Local Exchange Routing Guide, has been the
routing table for the North American telephone companies for decades.
But two forces are driving the LERG toward irrelevance.
First, growing numbers of subscribers are porting their landline
telephone numbers to cable and wireless services providers.
Second, technology and cost trends indicate that the North American
number portability database will be widely available as a routing resource for
enterprise and VoIP service providers. Number portability has been an issue for telephone companies
since it was mandated by the FCC in 1996.
Now number portability is becoming a serious issue for enterprises and
VoIP service providers as the percentage of calls to ported numbers is
approaching parity with calls to un-ported number.
TransNexus, a VoIP software provider, reports that approximately 40% of
VoIP traffic managed by its customers are calls to ported numbers.
Virtually all enterprises and most retail VoIP service
providers route calls based on the dialed telephone number.
This is a problem when the called party has ported their number to
different carrier. Routing the call
to the dialed number directs the call toward the carrier that owns the number,
not the carrier that serves the subscriber.
The call will be completed, but the enterprise or service provider
originating the call will get a surprise when the termination cost is greater
than expected. The reason is
because most long distance providers charge for wholesale termination based on
the final carrier, not the dialed telephone number. In almost every case, call termination charges based on the
dialed number are different from termination charges based on the carrier
serving the ported number. The
result is that long distance invoices never match what customers expect, and
usually the bill is significantly larger than expected.
This issue is amplified by wholesale rate plans that include a high
termination fees for calls to terminating carriers not explicitly included in
the rate deck. Calls to ported
number may unexpectedly be routed to carriers not included on a rate deck and
charged at rates as high as five cents per minute or more.
Jim Dalton, CEO of TransNexus says that “rate differences
between dialed and ported numbers can increase termination costs by at least 15%
and the problem will only get worse as more people port their numbers.
If you want to manage your costs, you have to route based on the LRN.”
The LRN, or Location Routing Number, looks like a telephone number, but
is a special routing number that links a dialed telephone number that has been
ported to its new carrier. The FCC mandated the creation of the Number Portability
Administration Center, or NPAC, to manage the database of ported numbers in the
U.S. In simple terms, the NPAC is a
list of 300 million ported telephone numbers and their corresponding LRN.
For every call, telephone carriers query the NPAC with the dialed
telephone and receive the corresponding LRN needed for call routing.
Originally access to the NPAC was expensive and limited to
only telephone companies. Now,
however, subscription to NPAC is affordable for enterprises and VoIP service
providers who need number portability correction.
Companies such as NeuStar offer the complete NPAC available for download.
Enterprises and VoIP service provides can now host the NPAC database
locally in their network and correctly route calls based on the LRN just like
phone companies. Ten years ago, the specialized hardware needed to host the
NPAC with a telephone switch cost one million dollars.
Four years ago the cost of an ENUM
network appliance to host the NPAC had fallen to one hundred thousand dollars.
Now TransNexus is offering a SIP based Linux based software package that
reduces the cost of hosting the NPAC by another order of magnitude.
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