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

[Andreas Roedl]

Hello!

Am Dienstag, 8. März 2005 22:03 schrieb Joe Greco:
> > 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.

It seems to be a little different in Germany, but I'm not sure. It all depends 
on the base number (don't know the technical term). If the base number is 
short enough, you can do whatever you want with the remaining part. For 
example: 611035 is the base number of NI and I can add up to 5 DID digits, 
because the maximum length of a phone number in Germany is 11 digits. So I 
can have thousands DID numbers. The bigger the company, the shorter the base 
number, it seems. Another example is Reuters Berlin, that has 28885 as their 
base number and they can have ten times more DID numbers, because their 
number is one digit shorter than ours.

> 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.

I understand.

> 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.

And that's what I'm trying to prevent.


Andreas