re: LNP and IP Voice
Vonage Breaks New Ground with LNP
newtelephony.com
[FAC: Let me just disclaim for a moment, since I've posted about this company several times recently. No special interests involved here. They just seem to be making newsworthy statements. Also, the New Telephony site from whence I obtained the article below ( newtelephony.com ) contains some interesting coverage of breaking events in VoIP and other convergence areas.]
In a move that will further strengthen its hand in both the consumer and small-business markets, Vonage became one of the first communication ASPs (application service providers) to offer local-number portability (LNP).
This capacity removes the onus of having to adopt a new phone number, sometimes an insurmountable barrier when dealing with small businesses and SOHOs, in order to switch to IP voice.
The company, which calls its service Vonage DigitalVoice, no doubt because "digital" is the term most consumers associate with advanced features, says the capability is immediately available in most of the local areas it serves, which includes many of the major metropolitan areas of the United States.
Vonage is implementing the new capability, not by deploying its own equipment, but rather through agreements with its CLEC partners. These partners are the source of the phone numbers in many area codes that Vonage is able to offer, and now provide the links for LNP.
"The PSTN signaling is done by our partners, various CLECs, depending on different areas," says Greg Welenson, senior business engineer. "We submit to them a complete number portability request. ... They go from that point and execute the LNP process with the ILECs."
Using this methods frees Vonage from many of the technical concerns associated with LNP. "I'm not concerned if they have electronic bonding or they shuffle paper manually, as long as they can execute the order based on our window," Welenson says. That is something that we might be interested in automating in the future, but for now we are primarily interested in the bonding between us and our partners."
This method does not, however, free Vonage from concerns about ILEC cooperation. "It still takes ILECs forever to execute," Welenson sighs. "That might be because of volume, but I don't want to say anything bad. They have their own processes, and they are the carrier of last resort, so they obviously are doing everything that they feel compelled to do."
The actual mechanisms to accomplish local number portability are straightforward and reliable, he says. "I have heard of no problems with LNP in this regard for several years."
Vonage provides a hosted voice service for consumers and small businesses that have broadband connections, usually cable modem or DSL. The service starts at $20 per month and includes an interface device, usually a Cisco Systems Inc. ATA, between the user's phones and the broadband connection. |
