This sounds very similar to something we've seen before. Feel free to contact me to look at specifics, but the basic gist of it is this: ILECs don't have to interconnect with VOIP carriers. Period. They usually do not do so. ILECs do have to interconnect with CLECs. However, smaller rural ILECs have plenty of barriers that they erect to try to wear the CLEC down so they'll give up before they succeed. But in the end, they have to do it. Once a CLEC is interconnected with the ILEC, they will have to port numbers back and forth. The CLEC can then serve the VOIP provider and provide the service you seek. The #1 factor here is economy of scale. You've got to have enough business in this ILEC territory to justify the cost and effort that the CLEC is going to have to exert on your behalf. If you've got 50 residential customers, that isn't going to cut it. I'd say a $5000.00 MRC to the CLEC is about the bare minimum it would take to get us to do it again. We have done it before, and we're providing service in some small rural ILEC areas now in exactly this fashion. Regards, Mike Mike Ray, MBA, CNE, CTE AstroTel, Florida's Other Phone Company 820 First Street West Bradenton, FL 34208 DIRECT: 941 256-9207 From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Rob Hutton Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2011 12:51 PM To: VoiceOps at voiceops.org Subject: [VoiceOps] Unportable Numbers We have a customer in Northeast Georgia that currently has their phone service through an ILEC who I have been told will not sign the sharing agreements with the underlying VOIP networks, and therefore no one that I can find has any rate centers in that area. Also, the VOIP carriers have not been willing to do a off network port request, which when refused would allow me to continue forward on a complaint with the regulatory bodies. The underlying VOIP network companies have told me that they have Local Number Portability departments to work through this stuff, and I need to work with my higher level carriers to get a case opened with their LNP departments before they will talk to me. The higer level carriers are telling me they don't know what to do because they have never run into this before. Does anyone have any experience working through this mess? Thanks in advance for your help, Rob