Posted on: 21st April 2023, by Magrathea
Ported numbers are a mainstay in the wholesale telephony space, enabling users to move their services around. However when faults happen, even with a single number, they can have a disproportionate impact on the end users business.
IP Migration
Although plans to migrate telephony services to an all-IP network are moving on, it is no secret that there is still a vast amount of voice traffic reliant on the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) and the underlying infrastructure.
There are thousands of telephone numbers that are still programmed into local BT exchanges meaning even if they are dialled from a VoIP service the call will route on the old copper network to the intended person receiving the call. There is absolutely nothing the caller, or their provider, can do to change this. It will remain that way until BT migrate the number across to their IP Exchange solution.
Onward routing
The other key thing to know is that when you port a phone number (i.e. have the number migrated from one service provider to another) any calls to that number will continue to route to the original range holder before being passed to the new provider. This means those numbers that remain hosted on the old network will continue to have calls pass via that old network before reaching the new IP provider.
This is known in the business as ‘onward routing’ and is widely accepted as an outdated way to handle call routing, but it is what we have to work with for now at least. This is important to know as if you port a phone number due to an issue with the call, there is a good chance it will follow the number to the new provider!
Now, managing both types of interconnect – IP and TDM – is business as usual for Magrathea. We cut our teeth as one of the very early networks that could exchange traffic between the two and have built a great business out of ironing out the kinks and idiosyncrasies of this type of interoperability.
Portability experts
Similarly, Magrathea are old hands at number porting too. Having been involved in creating the current industry process as well as being one of the earliest networks to offer a full client portal for handling ports, we feel we can say with all honesty that we know our stuff when it comes to managing porting and the subsequent issues that can result.
But even with all this experience and knowledge there is only so much we can control. Despite establishing a relationship with the range holder, testing the interconnect extensively and managing the process to bring a number across to our network, we are then jointly responsible with the range holder, the transit network (where used) and our own network to make sure calls work for the owner of the phone number.
Clearly, it’s in everyone’s interests for calls to work – after all that’s how we all earn money – but things can, and do, go wrong. None of us can claim to be fault free but it’s been noticed that the occurrence of ported number faults has increased in recent months.
We are not interested in pointing fingers or shrugging off these faults as somebody else’s problem, but it is probably fair to highlight we are all aware that the old PSTN network is ageing and no longer receiving much, if anything, in the way of investment. With that in mind we shouldn’t be too surprised to see an increase in faults where calls rely on the older parts of the network.
With migration to Voice over IP well underway and barriers to switching and porting being slowly eradicated we can expect the volume of calls to ported numbers to increase quite considerably over the coming months and years, so we do have to work together as an industry to navigate the challenges of ported number faults.
What does Magrathea do to reduce complaints and resolve issues?
We work in three ways:
Magrathea monitors how traffic enters our network so we can work to establish direct interconnects with any high-volume porting partners, rather than rely on transit networks. This helps to remove one of the potential points of failure.
We spread traffic across a number or interconnects and gateways in such a way as can help us when diagnosing issue and narrowing down where faults are introduced.
The final thing is that we work really hard with our clients and our porting partners to improve the fault reporting process – keeping things as efficient as possible.
How can our clients reduce complaints and help us resolve issues?
When there is a problem we will ask you to provide specific call examples; with clear explanations of the fault we can usually narrow down the problem quite quickly and, if we prove the fault to be on the range holder network, or the interconnect between us, we can work with them to get a fix.
For more details on common ported number faults please download our guide here: https://www.magrathea-telecom.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Porting-in-the-UK_Common-Faults-3.pdf
This is an industry wide concern and we all need to work together. We think helping others to understand the porting process better really helps everyone involved so if you would like to join one of our porting workshops to get more insight into porting and get time with our porting experts, please do get in touch by calling us on 0345004004 or email info@magrathea-telecom.co.uk