August 2019 - VoiceOps - lists.voiceops.org

ANIs flagged as telemarketer/spammer/scammer
by abalashov＠evaristesys.com Nov. 14, 2021

Nov. 14, 2021

Hi, So, of course, it is a known problem in the legitimate side of the lead engagement call centre, survey, etc. business that ANIs get flagged as "telemarketer" pretty quickly and start showing up that way on people's phones. Your normative viewpoint on that may vary depending on what you think of lead gen calls, but regardless, a reasonable person would differentiate between: (1) Legitimate outbound dialing operations that are following up with leads who provided their phone number and agreed to be called (at least, as a matter of clicking "accept" on _something_), or for some other legitimate mass-dialing purpose, and who actually own the DID inventory from which they present local-market ANIs and can in fact be reached on those numbers; (2) Illegal spammers who use fake ANIs and call people who did not in any way consent to being called by them. I am trying to learn a bit more about how this is done and what a legitimate, above-board business can do about it. Ignoring the factor of third-party call-screening apps (which most people with a mobile don't use), where is this generally implemented? As I understand it, T-Mobile do it on the network level. I have T-Mobile myself, and probably 2/3rds of unfamiliar numbers, including quite legitimate ones, show up as "Scam Likely" ? I know that's come up on the list before. AT&T displays "Telemarketer"; do they do it that way too, or do they use a Google Android feature for that which they enable as part of their carrier defaults for carrier-issued phones? What about other carriers and Android? As far as I know, Apple don't do anything like this. Do people with iPhones just not receive this "service"? How does that work? Asking where the central, or the most influential authority lies and who provides it goes to the heart of the real question, which is: what can a legitimate business do if their number has been blacklisted this way? As I understand it, the maintainers of these lists, along with the criteria for getting on them, are elusive and inscrutable, and there's really no recourse and no appeals process. I furthermore understand that this has led to the widespread approach of rotating ANIs, but that's a losing battle; they get flagged too. I imagine it won't be long before the criteria for "Scam Likely" are just "number appears to call lots of numbers in this rate centre and otherwise hasn't been around very long". But this is all just conjecture on my part; I really don't know much about how my carrier, anyone's carrier, or some BigCo that's behind my mobile OS decides that a call is a "telemarketer" or "scam" call. If anyone can shed some light on how this really works and what, if anything can be done about it, I would be most appreciative. -- Alex Balashov | Principal | Evariste Systems LLC Tel: +1-706-510-6800 / +1-800-250-5920 (toll-free) Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/, http://www.csrpswitch.com/

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Connecting to Remote Tandems
by voiceops＠ics-il.net July 9, 2021

July 9, 2021

I'm evaluating methods of extending our footprint. I purposely left out company names. One of the companies we talked to was really only interested in getting us the inbound long distance calls, not the local ones. Well, they would, but the terms were vastly different. Given that I still need to build out to connect to the local tandem, what's the point in using a third party to connect to long distance? Are the terms for connecting to the local tandems different because the access tandem is simpler, whereas the local tandem could potentially involve connections to a bunch of other switches, once volume dictated I needed direct connections... and they don't want to deal with that? Are there third parties that don't have vastly different terms for local tandem services? Also, is it likely that I just don't understand what's going on? I went circles with the sales rep to make sure I understood what he was saying, but I could be wrong. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com

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Ringing problems
by peeip989＠gmail.com Sept. 5, 2019

Sept. 5, 2019

We have recently gotten several complaints about not getting, or severely abbreviated ringback. The first few examples we were able to trace back to a carrier and believe it is because the call sets up with 183 Session Progress w/SDP and <1 second later get a 180 Ringing and the audible ringing stops. We heard a similar complaint in Europe last with an EU carrier. And again today with yet another US (global) provider. So, my questions are: 1- Anyone else seeing this? If so, what's your workaround/fix? 2- Since this is not contained to a single carrier, anyone aware of an SBC or softswitch maker recently released code that might be causing? Thanks, Pete

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CLEC - STIR/SHAKEN
by dovid＠telecurve.com Aug. 27, 2019

Aug. 27, 2019

As I understand it if one wants to get a cert for STIR shaken you need to become a CLEC. Anyone have a how to/contacts for companies that make this effortless and easy?

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Who do we call - 3rd plus party carrier issues affecting local customers
by Jamie.Montgomery＠comporium.com Aug. 21, 2019

Aug. 21, 2019

Greetings.. Looking for the proper way to identify a third party carrier.. We have had a monthlong ongoing issue with external calls into our switch with terrible quality. It's random, but it's calls to ported numbers into one of our CLEC areas. When an affected call comes in, it is reported as static or delay. We have obtained an audio capture of a couple of these calls from the ingress point of our TDM network, and the audio is severely delayed and choppy as if it was delayed within an IP network. We're assuming the call has been routed through an IP low-cost carrier somewhere. (Working with T-Mobile below, we found that their switches would route calls that originates and terminates locally in South Carolina through Washington state carriers.) All of the calls with an issue come into us from a legacy ATT tandem, but not all of the calls from the ATT tandem are affected. We've been trying to get in touch with ATT for a month, and have recently spoken to some people with no resolution. We continue to call them daily. We worked with T-Mobile on issues with their wireless customers calling our CLEC customers experiencing this problem. The guys at T-Mobile were excellent to work with. (They reached out to their 3rd party carrier Inteloquent who had rerouted calls away from CenturyLink, which resolved calls from T-Mobile devices.) We're getting dozens of trouble calls a day from several of our CLEC customers on calls originating from many other sources (Verizon, local ILEC landlines, etc.). We've explained to our customer that the trouble is not ours, that we're doing our best to track down the problem carrier, but we're been notified by our customers that we're going to lose them, regardless. Our last idea is to file a complaint with the FCC, but that's leaving issues unresolved. My questions to the community are: * What's the most effective way to zero in on the problem carrier to troubleshoot the issue? * What legal means do we have to empower somebody to support us in finding the issue? * What would you do if your hands were tied like ours seem to be? * (What other questions should I be asking the community that come to mind?) My background is switching and some at work experience of the SS7 network. I'm of the opinion that I'm not the most qualified in our organization to engage the FCC or twist ATT's arm to work with us.. but no one else beside the on-point technician is making any effort. Internal responsibilities aside: How do we make the extra effort to keep our customers? I appreciate the time you took from your day reading this. Jamie Montgomery | Comporium Network Facilities Engineering | Voice Network Engineering Associate www.comporium.com jamie.montgomery at comporium.com The information contained in this e-mail message and any attachments thereto are confidential, privileged, or otherwise protected from disclosure, and are intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this message and any attachments by anyone other than the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by telephone or e-mail and destroy the original message, attachments, and all copies.

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AT&T Answering Misdials
by voiceops＠ics-il.net Aug. 16, 2019

Aug. 16, 2019

I misdialed a number (312) 817-1629 and got the message, "At no additional charge, AT&T can help you find a similar business in the same area, since the number you called is not in service." It then went into an IVR. Is this common? Does this break any automated systems? No, I have no desire to implement this on our numbers. ----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions http://www.ics-il.com Midwest Internet Exchange http://www.midwest-ix.com

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