phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences

Wed Apr 27 02:55:07 UTC 2016

I would imagine for VOIP that's because all three are country code 1 :)

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 7:50 PM, Ray Orsini <ray at orsiniit.com> wrote:

> On our VOIP service we include US, Canada and Puerto Rico as "local"
> calling.
>
> Regards,
>
> Ray Orsini – CEO
> Orsini IT, LLC – Technology Consultants
> VOICE DATA  BANDWIDTH  SECURITY  SUPPORT
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-bounces+ray=orsiniit.com at nanog.org] On Behalf Of
> Larry Sheldon
> Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2016 3:11 PM
> To: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world
> consequences
>
>
>
> On 4/20/2016 10:15, Owen DeLong wrote:
> >
> >> On Apr 20, 2016, at 7:59 AM, Jean-Francois Mezei
> >> <jfmezei_nanog at vaxination.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 2016-04-20 10:52, Owen DeLong wrote:
> >>
> >>> For the most part, “long distance” calls within the US are a thing
> >>> of the past and at least one mobile carrier now treats US/CA/MX as a
> >>> single local calling area
> >>
> >>
> >> Is this a case of telcos having switched to IP trunks and can reach
> >> other carriers for "free"
> >>
> >> Or are wholesale long distance still billed between carriers but at
> >> prices so low that they can afford to offer "free" long distance at
> >> retail level ?
> >
> > I think it boiled down to a recognition that the costs of billing were
> > beginning to account for something like $0.99 of every $1 billed.
>
> I wonder if the costs of avoiding-preventing-investigating toll fraud final
> grow to consume the profit in the product.
>
> I know that long ago there were things that I thought were insanely silly.
> A few examples:
>
> As an ordinary citizen I was amused and annoyed, in the case where a toll
> charge had been contested (and perforce refunded) there would often be
> several non-revenue calls to the protesting number asking whoever answered
> if they knew anybody in the called city, or if they knew who
> the called number belonged to.   (Proper answer in any case:  Who or
> what I know is none of your business.)  Often there would calls to the
> called number (super irritating because the error was in the
> recording--later learned to be poor handwriting) asking the reciprocal
> questions except that often they had no idea that a call had been made.
>
> I  was a Toll Transmissionman for a number or years back in the last iceage
> and one of the onerous tasks the supervisor had was "verifying the phone
> bill" which might be a stack as much as six inches tall.  The evening shift
> supervisor (or one of them in a large office, like Los Angeles 1 Telegraph,
> where I worked for a while) would go through the bill, line by line, page
> by
> page, looking at the called number an d if he recognized it and placing a
> check mark next to it,  If he did not recognize it, he would search the
> many
> lists in the office to see it was shown, and adding a check mark if a list
> showed it for a likely sounding legal call.  If that didn't work he would
> probably have to call the number to see who answered (adding a wasted
> revenue-call path to the wreckage).  Most often it would turn out to be the
> home telephone number of a repair supervisor in West Sweatsock, Montana,
> who
> had been called because a somebody who protested the policy that the
> repairman going fishing meant some problem would not be addressed for
> several days.  So he put a check mark next to the number and moved on.
>
> Which meant the number would show up on the next month's bill.  And it
> would
> again not be recognized from memory.  And so forth and so on.
> Until eventually, after several months, the number would be recognized,
> check-marked without drama, and disappear forever from the bill.
>
> Lastly, in later years I was assigned to the the Revenue Accounting
> organization (to write programs for printing telephone books) and came to
> realize that there were a LOT of people in RA working with a LOT of people
> in the Chief Special Agents organization using a LOT of computer time to
> analyze Toll records for fraud patterns.
>
> Oops, not quite lastly....  Looking back at my Toll Plant days in the
> heyday
> of Captain Crunch--there were a lot engineering hours redesigning Toll
> equipment, and plant hours modifying or replacing equipment do defeat the
> engineering efforts of the Blue Box Boys.
>
> --
> "Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a
> tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
>
> --Albert Einstein
>