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SIP Trunks: Porting Rejections

Local number portability still presents hurdles for customers transitioning to SIP trunks. Recently, one of our customers wanted the cost reductions that SIP trunks offer, and the "losing carrier" rejected their number porting because the customer had a single bill with sub-accounts listed for each entity within the organization. Five months later, the numbers are finally porting.

This customer set to work to dismantle the single bill into new separate bills with all new account numbers for each organizational entity. Once again the Letter of Agency (LOA) was submitted and once again rejected--only this time the notation from the losing carrier was that in order to have the telephone number ported, the customer must upgrade to fiber.

The customer intervened and contacted their carrier, stating that they already had fiber and wanted the numbers ported. Two days later, the numbers were once more scheduled for porting. Again, the carrier rejected the port request, and this time, the customer requested that the numbers be moved from outside plant (OSP) over to the fiber interface.

Another customer of ours received a porting rejection letter stating that the account number was invalid. The reason the account number was invalid was because the last partial port of numbers left the customer with some decisions as to what to keep and port in the next round. By the time the LOA was sent in for the new request, the main account number changed for the remaining services.

Then, because of the lapse of time from the original LOA submittal with documented customer telephone bills, more than 90 days elapsed and once again the losing carrier rejected the new port request. The customer submitted a new LOA once more and a copy of their new bill, and their remaining services were finally scheduled to port. But at the last minute (the day before) the losing carrier rejected the request because the BTN (Billed Telephone Number) didn't match the account number. The new bill clearly shows both the BTN and account number and lists the DIDs under the account.

Yet another customer with multiple service location groups wasn't spared the rejection letter either. The porting request was refused because the physical service location did not match the address on the bill and the address listed the main location and not the service location being ported.

It seems that porting guidelines may have some good intentions, but are they reasonable and do they protect the customers? VOIP.MS lists some common port rejections here.

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