LNPA WG Meeting Minutes
February 2001

La Jolla Mariott

San Diego, CA

Host:  Telcordia

 

Tuesday February 13, 2001     9:00 am –  5:00 pm 

Conference Bridge 1-888-699-0348, pin # 7192

Attendance:

Name

Company

Name

Company

H.L. Gowda (phone)

AT&T

Dave Garner

Qwest

Cindy Sheehan

AT&T Broadband

Charles Ryburn

SBC

Anne Cummins

AT&T Wireless

Jim Alton

SBC

Dominic Choi

AT&T Wireless

Stephanie Swanson

Sprint

Chris Martin

Bell Canada

Patrick Lockett

Sprint

Dave Cochran

BellSouth

Brian Egbert

Sprint PCS

Ron Steen

BellSouth

John P. Malyar

Telcordia Technologies

Marian Hearn

Canadian LNP Consortium

Jean Anthony

Telecom Software Enterprises

James Grasser

Cingular Wireless

Dan Collier

Telus

Monica Dahmen

Cox Communications, Inc.

Michelle Gimmi

TriVergent- Gabriel

Dennis Robins (phone)

Electric Lightwave

Gary Sacra

Verizon

Jim Rooks

Evolving Systems, Inc.

Kevin Cooke

Verizon

Ron Stutheit

Evolving Systems, Inc.

Richard Bell

Verizon

Therese Mooney

Global Crossing

Sharon Bridges

Verizon

Maggie Lee

Illuminet

Pascale Lacroix

Videotron Telecom

Rick Jones

NENA

Richard Seyer

Videotron Telecom

Gustavo Hannecke

Neustar

Lana Swalls

Williams

Marcel Champagne

Neustar

Jason Lee

WorldCom

Gene Johnston

Neustar

Steve Addicks

WorldCom

Cathy Handley

Neustar

 

 

 

Review of January Minutes:

Neustar stated that their objection to PIM-5 is the Liability and Neutrality implications and this was not  clear in the minutes. 

 

Wireless Number Portability Subcommittee Readout:

The WNPSC wants to be sure that the LLC is informed about the estimated wireless porting volumes and busy hours.  The WNPSC based the following profile on current activation data for the % per day and hour, and public churn rate data for volume:

·         Approximately 40% of activations occur between mid-November and mid-January.

·         Activations are flat during the busy hours of 12:00 – 8:00 pm in all time zones

·         Busy hours are the same and flat for all days.  (including Sunday)

·         The busiest days are Monday - Friday

·         Activations are flat Monday – Friday

·         Saturday activations are ~75% of M-F

·         Sunday activations are ~30% of M-F

Based on public data for the most active region (the West Coast) the peak Sunday porting during the busy season will be 12,500 numbers.  Or approximately 84,000 numbers nationally. 

Although Sunday volumes for wireless are only 30% of the busy day, this volume is similar to the current wireline busy day porting.  The WNPSC recommends requesting NPAC support on Sundays. 

The wireless carriers will work with the national Ops team to request that the timers run on Monday through Sunday rather than the current Monday through Saturday.  The LNPA was not sure if the start and stop days of the week are a tunable feature of the NPAC or are hardcoded.  Neustar was requested to determine whether the timers can be adjusted to run on Sundays based on a tunable. 

 

Slow Horse Subcommittee:

Steve Addicks reviewed the Slow Horse reports from Feb & March 2000 with the November and December reports to see if the success percentage has improved. 

Steve noted that it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from the data, and that the slow horse subcommittee will need to review the subject again in the future.  The slow horse committee does not anticipate that any more slow horse report will be requested, at least prior to the release of 3.0.  Prior to the next slow horse meeting, anticipated to occur in June 2001, slow horse issues will continue to be an agenda item for the LNPA working group. 

 

NEW BUSINESS, FREQUENCY OF LNPA MEETINGS:

The LNPA agreed that the agenda’s have been getting thin lately.   The group is not sure if this is a temporary lull and will change once EDR is implemented or when wireless portability heats up.  Several members expressed a preference for fewer meetings rather than shorter meetings.   The opposing concern was that the change order process is very slow already, and bi-monthly meetings would slow it down further.  Others felt that the slow change order process is not because of the meeting frequency, but because of the release frequency and urgency of the current change requests.  Therefore, many representatives feel that the meeting frequency can be reduced without impacting the change order progress.  It was agreed that the meeting frequency is somewhat driven by release frequency, but there was no consensus on what the release frequency should be after release 4.0.

Several people discussed the lead-time needed to decide whether to attend a meeting and the time needed to set up or cancel meetings.  The conclusion was that changes to the schedule need to be made well in advance rather than on a month by month basis. 

The group reached consensus that starting the meetings at 9:00 am is better than starting at 12:00 noon.  This is because cross time zone travelers still need to fly the day before for either 9:00 or 12:00 start times.  The WNPSC stated that they can complete their business from 8:00-9:00 am on Tuesday mornings. 

The group could not agree to cancel any meetings at this time, but the membership was requested to consider canceling the August and December meetings because NANC does not meet in those months and the group will not need to report.

For April’s meeting the group chose to meet in Portland Maine rather than Boston because the hotel rates are much lower.  Portland is ~1.5 hours drive from Boston, or ~1 hour drive from Manchester New Hampshire.   (Manchester may have cheaper airfare.)

 


Problem / Issues Management (PIMs):

PIM-9:  New  

US LEC opened this PIM because inter-exchange carriers are refusing to take trouble tickets for incoming calls to US LEC’s ported-in customers.  The situation occurs when ported-in customers notice that they can not receive incoming calls from a particular IXC.  It is taking as much as 10+ days to get these problems resolved.  In these cases US-LEC has not found that these problems are due to partial failures of the NPAC broadcast, but rather failures in the IXC’s network.  These customers have been able to receive local calls but not from IXCs.  US LEC has also had problems finding people at the IXCs who are knowledgeable about LNP.   

David Taylor stated that the due to the aspect of this issue, what we need to focus on is that some IXCs will only take trouble tickets from representatives of the originating customer, but not from the company representing the terminating customer.   One fundamental question is:  “Is there an industry expectation that companies should take trouble tickets from receiving customers (3rd party trouble reports.) ?  We did not reach consensus on whether companies should take 3rd party trouble reports.

It was suggested that this issue should be discussed at the NNPO operations team.  US LEC has taken this issue to the NNPO in the past, but was not able to resolve it. 

It was suggested that both the inter-service provider trouble resolution process and the service provider trouble reporting contact list are the responsibility of the NIIF (Network Interoperability and Interconnection Forum, a sub-committee of ATIS, Alliance of Telecommunications Industry Solutions)  The group felt this issue needs to be referred to NIIF.  The LNPA co-chair will prepare a letter to NIIF referring the issue.   (see www.atis.org,  the NIIF link is in the stripe at the bottom of the ATIS home page.)

 

PIM-1:   Porting with Resellers. 

Last month a sub-team of OBF and NNPO members worked on revised flows for porting with resellers. OBF now supports two options:

·         The original process where the New Service Provider manages the overall porting process, sending LSRs to both the New Network Service Provider (NNSP) and the Old Service Provider.

·         An alternate process where the (NNSP) receives the LSR from the Reseller then forwards it to the Old Network Service Provider.  Current OBF processes allow an SP to designate another company as an “Authorized Agent” to send the LSR for them.  This allows the NNSP to optionally send an LSR for the reseller without any change to the existing NANC flows. 

A new concern has been raised for instances where a reseller chooses to manage all the LSRs.  Some network service providers are concerned that a reseller will be entering NNSP data on the LSR, or committing the NNSP to timeframes without their control or knowledge.  Network Service Providers are not going to accept allowing third parties to commit them to actions that are subject to performance metrics without consent and control.  NNPO will discuss this issue next week. 

It was stated that the root problem is that the LSR-FOC intervals and processes were not created with resellers in mind, and that state commissions who are monitoring performance metrics on some carriers make no distinction for ports with resellers.  Most carriers do not think the current LSR/FOC intervals can be met in cases with resellers. 

 


PIM-6:   Modify 911 Record Migration Process  &  End User Move Indicator (EUMI)  

There are two aspects to PIM 6

·         Timeliness of the data update –  NENA is currently working on an error resolution process to clean up all of the unlocked and partially migrated numbers in their databases.  NENA will begin work on modifying the migrate process to put it in the control of the New Service provider after they have completed the process for cleaning up the failed migrations.  NENA hopes to complete the error resolution process at their March meeting. 

·         EUMI – Carriers should use Delete/Inserts when the end user moves.  OBF has extensively discussed making the EUMI field a required field on the LSR, but some carriers are insisting that the field be left “conditional.”  That is that carriers will be required to mark EUMI field “yes” when the customer is moving, but that a blank field will be interpreted as meaning “no”.

 

PIM-5:   Unilateral Back-out of Inadvertent Port.  

We reviewed the current status of corporate positions on this subject.  BellSouth does not think this process should be applied to cases where a service provider has gone out of business. 

Verizon still advocates adoption of this process since there is no alternative escalation process.

Companies who would prefer that this PIM 5 be withdrawn include:  Quest, WorldCom, Bell South, Sprint, AT&T,

SBC is neutral on the subject.

Verizon stated that the reason they are so adamant in their support of the PIM-5 process is that they have recently experienced having the NY City poison control hotline and the main number for a hospital inadvertently ported, where the other service provider could not be contacted. 

The group’s consensus is that this problem could be resolved if all carriers maintain 7x24 hr contacts with the authority and capability to perform emergency porting and back out of porting.  

The LNPA chose to: 

1)       Take the suggestion to NANC that all carriers be required to provide 7x24 support for emergency porting. 

2)        Once NANC has responded, LNPA will consider voting to close the PIM.   

 

 


Wednesday February 14,  8:30 – 5:00pm

Name

Company

Name

Company

Cindy Sheehan

AT&T Broadband

Cathy Handley

Neustar

Anne Cummins

AT&T Wireless

Dave Garner

Qwest

Dominic Choi

AT&T Wireless

Charles Ryburn

SBC

Chris Martin

Bell Canada

Jim Alton

SBC

Dave Cochran

BellSouth

Patrick Lockett

Sprint

Ron Steen

BellSouth

Brian Egbert

Sprint PCS

Marian Hearn

Canadian LNP Consortium

Colleen Collard <phone>

Tekelec

James Grasser

Cingular Wireless

John P. Malyar

Telcordia Technologies

Monica Dahmen

Cox Communications, Inc.

Jean Anthony

Telecom Software Enterprises

Dennis Robins <phone>

Electric Lightwave

Dan Collier

Telus

Jim Rooks

Evolving Systems, Inc.

Michelle Gimmi

TriVergent- Gabriel

Mike Panis

Evolving Systems, Inc.

Gary Sacra

Verizon

Ron Stutheit

Evolving Systems, Inc.

Kevin Cooke

Verizon

Therese Mooney

Global Crossing

Richard Bell

Verizon

Maggie Lee

Illuminet

Sharon Bridges

Verizon

Rick Jones

NENA

Pascale Lacroix

Videotron Telecom

Gustavo Hannecke

Neustar

Richard Seyer

Videotron Telecom

Marcel Champagne

Neustar

Lana Swalls

Williams

Gene Johnston

Neustar

Jason Lee

WorldCom

Rob Coffman

Neustar

Steve Addicks

WorldCom

 

 

Release 3.0 Update:

Rob Coffman of NueStar provided an update on release 3.0 status.  This will be reviewed again at the cross regional meeting on Feb

The region rollout order has been modified by the LLC.  The current sequence is:

1) Northeast, 2) Western, 3) West Coast, 4) Southeast, 5) Southwest, 6) Midwest, 7) Mid-Atlantic

Half of the service providers involved in the testing will need to change the IP address they use for the NPAC tests bed.  When regions convert to 3.0 in production, half of the SPs in that region will need to change the IP address they use for the NPAC.  Because the mix of providers in each region is different than in testing, the providers who must change for production will be different from the providers who change in testing. 

Because changing IP addresses causes firewall issues, several providers requested that they get the new IP addresses well before the conversion. 

 

Change Orders:    9:30 – Noon; 1:00-4:00    

NANC 324:   TBD

LNPA accepted NANC 324.   This is a documentation only change order.

 

NANC 325:   Cancellation of a disconnect pending

LNPA accepted NANC 325.   This is a documentation only change order. 

 

NANC 326: Flow B.5.6: Subscription Version Query

LNPA accepted NANC 326.   This is a documentation only change order.

 

TSE indicated that they expect to release an updated FRS with the documentation change orders incorporated in March. 

 

NANC 219:  NPAC Monitoring of LSMS Associations

LNPA did a final review of NANC 219.   The changes from the January meeting were approved.

 

NANC 217:  Complete Migration of One SPID to Another SPID

The group thinks NANC 217 has been dropped from the release 4.0 package but it is not yet official.  We discussed whether NANC-217 should be moved out of release 4.0 and into future releases.  In favor of moving 217 to future change orders is that it has been substantially changed and will need to go back to the LLC for reconsideration.  Opinions were expressed that this change order has been greatly simplified, and therefore should be less expensive to implement.  The LNPA decided to continue working on this CR, and when it has been finalized to send it back to the LLC with a letter addressing the changes since there has not been a official revised list of Release 4.0 change orders. 

LNPA reviewed and approved the revisions to the NANC 217 requirements. 

There are two parts of the process which remain to be defined: 

·         How do we notify the NPAC that a SPID is to be modified?

·         How does the NPAC notify all service providers that a SPID will be changed? 

The group decided that the New SPID must be a valid existing SPID prior to performing the SPID change.   (If a SP decides they want to migrate to an entirely new SPID, the new SPID must be created prior to the migration. 

It was pointed out that because we will modify pending subscription versions in this process, it will affect the LSR process.  This will require coordination between service providers.  We discussed the need to have the owner of the old SPID authorize the change.  Additionally there is a need to add robust safeguards against typographic mistakes due to the non-reversible nature of the process.   Also, the process must be performed during a maintenance window because it requires companies to run a script which will fundamentally change their databases.   It was suggested that the modification  file be transferred to the LSMS owners via an FTP rather than as an e-mail attachment. 

TSE will update the change order without deleting any of the history for discussion at the March LNPA meeting. 

Action Item:  Service Providers are requested to consider the internal impacts of making a SPID change, and be prepared to discuss in the March LNPA meeting.  Considerations include:

·         The process for notifying the NPAC of an upcoming SPID change

·         The process for NPAC notifying all LSMS providers and Service Providers of the change

·         The impact to internal OSS systems and user education (training)

·         The timing of the steps and intervals required

Representatives should come to the March meeting prepared to discuss the end to end process needed to support SPID changes from an inter-company perspective. 

 

NANC 323:   Partial Migration of SPID via Mass Update

LNPA accepted NANC 323.  NANC 323 was created as a result of splitting NANC 217 into separate change requests for  a complete migration of SPID and a partial migration of SPID.  We had a brief discussion of whether the change management process dictated that the new CR be for the partial or complete migration.   

Based on discussion of the M&P associated with the software changes, we noted that Partial SPID updates have many of the same impacts to SP’s internal OSS systems and processes.  Therefore an action item requiring internal review of the impacts is needed for NANC 323.  LNPA reviewed the requirements for NANC 323.  We discussed whether the partial migration process should incorporate an option for a complete migration, and decided to retain a complete migration option in NANC 323 so that it can be implemented independent of NANC-217. 

We identified a requirement to update the SPID for any notifications that are in the queue for recovery.  This requirement applies to both NANC 323 and NANC 219.   In the case of pending-no active SVs, the LRN needs to be used to identify the service provider.  However, pending SVs for subsequent ports can not be identified for update based on LRN and need to be identified in some other way. One suggestion was to identify them by 10 digit TN in the migration file.   Another suggestion is to correct pending subsequent ports using a partially manual process.  After a lengthy discussion, we decided we need to revisit defining the criteria used to decide which subscription versions are changed. 

The business needs we are trying to address are correcting the SPID associated with an NPA-NXX,  when the ownership of that NPA-NXX is transferred from one company to another.  The current architecture does not allow the NPA-NXX ownership data to be changed while there are active subscription versions for that NPA-NXX. 

 

Action Item: Service providers are requested to re-assess the business needs that would drive a SPID change and be prepared to discuss how to implement them. 

Additionally the same issues identified in NANC 217, need to be addressed by this change order:

·         The process for notifying the NPAC of an upcoming SPID change

·         The process for NPAC notifying all LSMS providers and Service Providers of the change

·         The impact to internal OSS systems and user education (training)

·         The timing of the steps and intervals required

Representatives should come to the March meeting prepared to discuss the end to end process needed to support SPID changes from an inter-company perspective. 

 

NANC 322:  Clean Up of Failed SP Lists Based on Service Provider BDD Response File

We need to identify the level of effort for the NPAC and LSMS for this CR.  We added an explicit statement that this is a positive response file.  That is, it is a file of SVs you want removed from the failed list. We added “1k blocks” to the list of objects that can be included in the response file. 

The file will be a pipe-delimited file with the SVID or Block ID listed first.  A carriage return or new line will separate lines.  Additional fields may be populated if pipe delimited. 

 

NANC 151: TN and Number Pool Block Addition to Notifications

Our desire is to make this change order purely backward compatible.   One of the service providers stated that their system would not be able to accept additional block and TN information without revision.   Therefore we will go ahead and add a flag to the NPAC user profile so providers can choose to receive either the current format, or the format with additional data.  This will eliminate the need for a flash cut. 

We discussed whether we should make the implementation of the profile flag a temporary measure that will sunset after 2 releases.  No conclusion was reached because the discussion changed to a discussion of whether the change should be made in the GDMO or the ASN1. 

It was concluded that the change will need to be made in GDMO rather than ASN1.  This may affect the backward compatibility of the change.

 

NANC 193: TN Processing during NPAC SMS NPA Split Processing

We reviewed a handout illustrating the timeline for NPAC split processing.   

There was a discussion about the original intent of this change order.

 

Action Item:  Service providers are requested to review the need for NANC 193 internally and be prepared to discuss whether this CR is still needed, or whether it can be replaced by an industry quiet period. 

 

 

IL-5: Round-Robin Broadcasts across SOA/LSMS associations

We reviewed and were satisfied with the changes.   

 

Action Item:  Service providers are requested to review the January Action Items and be prepared to discuss them in March.  The change order review in March will begin with action item review. 

 

JANUARY ACTION ITEMS:

AI: NANC.193 -- At the December meeting we came up with two actions items for Service Providers to investigate proposed changes to the NPA Split processing approach:

              i.       The feasibility of an industry quiet period while all systems process the NPA split.

            ii.       Is it necessary for the NPAC to create an "old" copy of the SV with the old NPA? (Creating an "old" SV for every active TN in each NPA-NXX involved in the NPA Split is a time consuming process and if it is not necessary the NPAC could process the NPA Split much faster.)

WorldCom stated that creating old SV for each changed SV is basic design element of NPAC and that they would strongly oppose failure to do this for SVs where a TN's NPA is changed due to an NPA split. 

 

 

 

Next Meetings … March 12 – 15 

 

Denver CO – ESI Hosts

 

 

2001 meeting schedule:  

LNPA WG:                                Host:                                                    NANC Meetings:

April 10 – 12                              Verizon, Portland Maine                           April 17 - 18

May 15 – 17                              Bell South, Atlanta                                 May 22 - 23

June 12 – 14                              Sprint, Kansas City                                June 19 - 20

July 10 – 12                               Canadian Consortium, Ottawa

August 14 - 16                           AT&T, Seattle

September 11 - 13                     Verizon, Baltimore                                

October 9 – 11                           SBC, San Antonio

November 13 - 15                       Neustar, New Orleans

December 11 – 13                      Qwest, Phoenix


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