My understanding is that this is all about the administrative friction of transfers and re-registrations. Once you?re registered with the FCC, state Public Utilities Commissions, local authorities for access to right of way and pole access, name changes and transfers can be complex. Then there are telecom-specific registries like NANP and NPAC, where each reassignment of a NPANXX block might require filing several forms. It?s also possible for those transfers to be rejected, hypothetically even if the FTC, DOJ or other related agencies have approved the transfer. However certain transactions, like a simple change of ownership, or an addition of a DBA identity, can be successful ways to get through the red tape. Therefore you?ll still see names going back to the original creation of the databases at the breakup of ?Ma Bell;? e.g., blocks of numbers assigned to ?Southern Bell?, later renamed BellSouth, later acquired by AT&T. But in some databases it?s still retained as the old name from the early 1989s. On Sat, Oct 23, 2021 at 18:32 Peter Beckman <beckman at angryox.com> wrote:
I'm curious why companies like T-Mobile and Inteliquent/Onvoy/Voyant continue to retain company names and corporate entities long after their brands have been retired, acquired, and generally shell entities holding phone numbers.
Some examples:
T-Mobile -> Omnipoint, Aerial Communications, Suncom, Powertel, Sprint, Eliska Wireless Ventures Subsidiary I Sprint -> O1 Communications, US Telepacific AT&T -> New Cingular Wireless, Southwestern Bell, Pacific Bell, Bell South, Southern Bell, Ameritech Verizon -> Cellco Partnership, Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile Inteliquent -> Radiant IQ, Onvoy, Voyant, Broadvox, Layered, Neutral Tandem CenturyLink -> United Telephone, Qwest Spectrum -> Charter Fiberlink
So many of these brands are dead and acquired, yet these companies live on and own phone numbers. Cingular died in 2006. Radiant IQ acquired in 2015. Bell Atlantic went away in 2000 with Verizon acquiring Bell Atlantic and GTE.
Why? What benefit does this provide the owning/operating companies? Legal insulation?
Beckman
PS -- This all started when I saw Inteliquent request VoIP Numbering for Radiant IQ in June 2020, a company they acquired in 2015, and generally does not exist in any meaningful way to customers or consumers, residential or business. This industry in the US is weird. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Beckman Internet Guy beckman at angryox.com https://www.angryox.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
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