American Idol 800 Numbers
Actually a while back Metaswitch in there 6.0 software release had a bug where it would not pass dtmf tones if the calls was not in a connected status state which was causing issues with ivr's with airlines ect. From: voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org [mailto:voiceops-bounces at voiceops.org] On Behalf Of Tim Jackson Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2010 6:45 PM To: cololiberty at comcast.net Cc: VoiceOps at voiceops.org Subject: Re: [VoiceOps] American Idol 800 Numbers It sounds to me like any AT&T IVR... They never actually answer until a human is on the other line... I think US Air, AA maybe, and DHL are all examples of this.. This is the same stuff that causes AT&T IVR problems when you do SIP -> ISUP and you're stuck in a 183 and the call times out... We get thousands of calls at our tandem for American Idol... On originating calls don't you bill carrier time, not connect time anyway, so you'd still be getting paid for it? Or do I have that reversed? -- Tim On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 8:14 PM, <cololiberty at comcast.net> wrote: I can't speak for most other carriers, but from what I've found from personal experience is that most carriers will set up a "choke trunk group" to a ss7 TDM for the toll free routing. This choke group will probably only have 10 cic's associated with it and then set up a method of overflow for the inevitable excess. In previous call traces I have made during American idol times, I do not see an ACM coming back, mostly it's a ANM due to no ringing and immediate answer. Having delt with customers in the past with choke groups, cell phones always seem to be able to complete calls to heavily dialed numbers in the past. It's usually an issue of the originating carriers capacity and not an issue of the terminating end's capacity. I would not say that american idol terminating end is "using resources" as we are being compensated from our customers for being able to place calls and the american idol numbers are compensated from american idol for opening and running the toll free numbers and the influx of calls. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carlos Alcantar" <carlos at race.com> To: "VoiceOps" <voiceops at voiceops.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 5, 2010 5:50:17 PM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain Subject: [VoiceOps] American Idol 800 Numbers So last night I was looking around our calls flowing thru our switch noticed a big spike in calls going to toll free numbers figured out it was American idol. I started digging deeper and I noticed that none of these calls where getting a connected status back from American idol. I did some random test to the different numbers and confirmed was never getting a connection status back. I also went ahead and tested from an att / Verizon cell phones and in both cases the cell phone still saying calling while it was playing back the American idol msg. so if I'm reading everything that I have collected correctly American idol is basically using our resources without having to compensate all the different carries for the calls. Anyone else seeing this? Carlos Alcantar Race Telecommunications, Inc. 101 Haskins Way South San Francisco, CA 94080 P: 650.649.3550 x143 F: 650.649.3551 E: carlos *@* race.com _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops _______________________________________________ VoiceOps mailing list VoiceOps at voiceops.org https://puck.nether.net/mailman/listinfo/voiceops
On 5/5/10 7:20 PM, Carlos Alcantar wrote:
Actually a while back Metaswitch in there 6.0 software release had a bug where it would not pass dtmf tones if the calls was not in a connected status state which was causing issues with ivr?s with airlines ect.
That shouldn't be considered a bug, it's a feature. Forward audio should not cut through when not connected in order to prevent toll fraud. This goes back to the old blue box/black box days, specifically the black box. If there is two-way audio before answer supervision, the receiving party can game the system so that the calling party is not billed for completed calls. Just don't return answer supervision, stop the ringback tone, and converse. Reverse audio is needed to play ringback, busy tone, intercept messages, etc. Forward audio as a rule should be blocked until the call is connected (and the meter is running for toll charges). If airline IVRs are playing the airline's greeting and accepting DTMF or inbound audio before connection, then the airlines are stealing from their 800-provider (if toll-free) or their callers' carriers (if toll). -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay at impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
On 05 May 2010 23:30, Jay Hennigan wrote:
On 5/5/10 7:20 PM, Carlos Alcantar wrote:
Actually a while back Metaswitch in there 6.0 software release had a bug where it would not pass dtmf tones if the calls was not in a connected status state which was causing issues with ivr?s with airlines ect.
That shouldn't be considered a bug, it's a feature. Forward audio should not cut through when not connected in order to prevent toll fraud.
This is exactly why, at least as far back as the late 1980s, LD carriers started charging after sixty seconds of ring-back. Back in the days before answering machines, I had lots of one-minute charges (for legitimately unanswered calls) on my bill until someone finally pointed out the fine print. Mobile carriers, of course, start billing immediately, regardless of the call state.
If airline IVRs are playing the airline's greeting and accepting DTMF or inbound audio before connection, then the airlines are stealing from their 800-provider (if toll-free) or their callers' carriers (if toll).
It's not like the carriers don't know about it, so if they haven't done anything to stop it, it's either part of their contracts or they assume that other measures (see above) will be effective enough it's not worth any additional effort. S -- Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking
participants (3)
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carlos＠race.com -
jay＠west.net -
stephen＠sprunk.org