[Asterisk-Users] DID in the U.S.

[Joe Greco]

> Hello!
> 
> There is something I really don't get: As I ordered a PRI ISDN line in Germany 
> with DID, I had not to pay anything for a "DID number block", now I'm trying 
> to get a PRI ISDN in the U.S. (CA) and SBC wants to charge more than 200 
> USD/month for numbers. I mean, this has nothing to do with DID, where 
> everything that comes after the "base number" will be transmitted to the PBX 
> anyway. Wasn't DID invented to get rid of number blocks?
> 
> Please enlighten me. Thanks.

You're burning up numbers that could be allocated to other customers.
There's an incentive for LEC's to discourage this by charging you for
the extra numbers.  The NANPA is getting tight on numbers, and at the
point where we have to move to 11-digit or 12-digit dialing instead of
10, there will be an immense amount of agony.

So usually you don't see providers just handing out blocks of numbers
for free.

Perhaps this isn't the case in Germany.

DID wasn't invented to "get rid of number blocks".  DID was invented
to *allow* number blocks, by passing off the last digits of the dialled
number to a PBX.  Without that, a PBX (or attendant) has to answer the 
line and ask you for the extension you want.  That situation has the
virtue of only burning a single number, but is viewed as uglier.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.