Maybe I still have my phone number

[nancylebov]

Cavalier called to tell me someone will be by to get my dial tone back with my usual phone number at 11 tomorrow. I'm not feeling totally trusting that this will work, but it might.

Comments

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

The hand off of the phone number is always a pain in the neck, because the previous holder can require up to ten days to have the phone number "settle" before it is transferred. This is ridiculous because it is merely changing an entry in several related databases and having the info propagate across the network.

The rules are stupid, arcane, and designed by the incumbent telcos to be as difficult to manage as possible -- but the process works great if you are transferring back from a competitive telco (CLEC) to the local incumbent (ILEC).

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

It gets better. Remember that my number was shut off last Friday (possibly late Thursday), and Cavalier told me that they couldn't do anything about it and I'd have to contact Cordia--who was doing an upgrade or a breakdown or something and couldn't access their customer accounts.

Now Cavalier says they're totally in charge of the process.

I have no idea whether it's extremely hard to communicate reliably across a large organization or whether these people are just not bothering to get something relatively simple right or something in between.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

It's timing. The hand off has been made, so now the number is administered by Cavalier. Cavalier has no control over this, since it is a question of when Neustar (which handles the North American Numbering Plan database) implements the change.

From Cavtel's perspective, the question is "when does the little light go on that says we have the number." Until that happens, they cannot do anything, because they have no relationship to the number. It is administered by Cordia, as part of their pool of numbers. Once Cordia makes the relevant changes, and these changes are implemented by Neustar, then the number is in the Cavtel pool.

So the change took place over the weekend. Most likely Cordia implemented it, but their network problems kept the number from "settling." Once the issue was cleared, Neustar processed it and the number was now transferred to the Cavtel number pool. So it is now entirely Cavtel's baby. Unless there is a problem on the ILEC line, in which case Cavtel will need to coordinate with the ILEC.

You can read my splendiforous experience with this here:
http://www.wetmachine.com/totsf/item/9

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. You are a very funny writer, and at least I didn't have to deal with a 3 year old through all this.

However, while I don't accuse anyone I've dealt with of evil (most of the 20 or 30 service people have been intelligent and all but one of them have been pleasant) (did you really get people who claimed to be vice-presidents or president of Verizon?), no one is actually keeping track of my account.

Apparently, the handiest source of information for a first level phone rep says something about my abandoning Cavalier back in October, and doesn't mention that a switch is in progress. That's why I was told to go to Cordia when my dial tone went away.

Also, I've gotten a human who told me I'd have someone show up to do the phone switch dance at 11AM tomorrow. I've since gotten a recorded message saying that someone will show up between 8AM and 7PM tomorrow. This is a purely internal matter for Cavalier. They just aren't keeping track of what they're doing.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that the piece that is probably not clear to folks outside telecom land is that Cordia and Cavalier never talk to each other. The system as architected requires them to go through third parties, because different parties control different pieces of the system.