[asterisk-biz] ANI

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, May 09, 2008 at 08:13:08PM -0400, John Scully wrote:
> OK - A few people here have touched on the right answer, but I am going to 
> say it more bluntly:
> 
> No limit on ability to "spoof" outbound callerid/ANI is possible without 
> crippling the ability to aggregate traffic from customers.  An aggregator 
> has zero ability to determine what PSTN numbers a customer of a customer has 
> right to use.  You have a PBX with PSTN numbers, I have a wholesale customer 
> who sells you IP trunking for outbound LD.  You set your switch to use the 
> proper ANI so people who call back some in on your PSTN lines.
> 
> Your direct "LD company" may have no switch, and your PBX may be trunked 
> directly to me, but I do not know who you are.  So I have no one to contact 
> and verify ANI, the company who does know who you are has no way to verify 
> what ANI you send, and in any case, it is none of our business.

With all due respect, that's your problem.

When calls are dumped into the PSTN, they *have* to have valid ANI; too
much of the semantics of the entire remainder of the PSTN depends on it. 

If that impairs the ability of some to interact with subscribers to the
PSTN, then they'll have to find another way to cope with it.  If you
mean what I think you mean by "aggregators" -- intermediate carriers
who bridge traffic from smaller edge providers to the PSTN, then your
responsiblity is to require that of your edge providers by contracts
with teeth.

But there has to be an ANI, and it has to point somewhere valid -- even
if it's the edge provider itself as proxy for the end sub.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com                     '87 e24
St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1 727 647 1274

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