Eircom allocating 052 in 0504 area

rmacm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

If I move my mobile or home number to another provider, how does traffic know to flowto that provider directly?
Are they maintaining databases with every single E164 in the country coupled with a underlying identifier for routing/pathing? I see landline networks use 8 digit UAN codes for that purpose, which I assume are segmented per vendor.

Worked for Deutsche Telekom for a while and that's essentially what we did in our IMS network.

The S-CSCF made an enum query to a database. The enum database in turn made a query to another system to check if this number had been ported to another operator. If yes then a routing prefix would be sent back to the enum machine and that would inform the S-CSCF that this number needed to be routed over a PSTN or SIP based breakout to whatever operator.

Cuddlesworth

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

How would such devices using ONLY IPv6 play into that NAT/Firewall difficulty?

The same. IPV6 was intended to negate the need for NAT but while IPv6 was gaining adoption, NAT became the defacto solution for fire-walling off devices from the internet. You can remove it but your then faced with the fact that devices can't be exposed to the internet in that way.

rmacm wrote: »

Worked for Deutsche Telekom for a while and that's essentially what we did in our IMS network.

The S-CSCF made an enum query to a database. The enum database in turn made a query to another system to check if this number had been ported to another operator. If yes then a routing prefix would be sent back to the enum machine and that would inform the S-CSCF that this number needed to be routed over a PSTN or SIP based breakout to whatever operator.

I suppose its the only way but its damm messy. Geographical number ranges and company specific prefixes made way more sense.

rmacm

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I suppose its the only way but its damm messy. Geographical number ranges and company specific prefixes made way more sense.

Messy is an understatment the S-CSCF we were using had the BGCF bundled with it. In the live network there was something like 2 Million entries in the BGCF Tables (when I left, it's probably grown by now). Someone had to write extra software just to manipulate the tables.

EdgeCase

Big old public networks like OpenEir still contain a lot of nearly obsolete TDM switching technology and are only transitioning towards IMS for PSTN/ISDN replacement.

I know Eir made some significant investments in an Ericsson's TSS/IMS platform to replace their AXE switches at 'tertiary level' and for international gateways and so on, but AFAIK (and it may have changed), the majority (if not all) of the PSTN/ISDN was definitely still running on Ericsson AXE and Alcatel E10 switching which is all TDM-based a couple of years ago.

They're beginning to encourage customers on FTTC/H to move over to VoIP based solutions using the ATA in the modem/ home gateway to provide PSTN-like service. I would assume that once they've a significant number of customers off the old PSTN infrastructure they'll begin winding it down and putting in something more modern to support the smaller % of customers who still want old-fashioned dial tone services. That kind of thing can be done very easily with modern MSANs.

Because the number portability solution was built around that kind of technology, there would still be a lot of layers and look-ups going on to get it to all work harmoniously.

There's old tech in some of the other providers' networks too.

All I would say is that the Irish solution for number portability works quite well. I've seen far worse implementations in other countries, possibly due to limitations of the TDM hardware involved, as a lot of that gear was never really designed with the idea that there would be multiple operators. We struck it relatively lucky as the two platforms TÉ chose in the 80s were relatively flexible and the vendors continued to exist and also supported them for longer and didn't pull out of TDM tech entirely. That wasn't the case in Germany and Belgium where Siemens sold off their telecoms devision and Nokia then pretty much abandoned their ESWD switching system quite a few years ago. There's a similar issue in BT's network where System X was totally orphaned when Marconi disappeared - that prompted a faster rush to VoIP behind the scenes than it did here.

There are still some weird issues like for example you can port a number out of the PSTN to a more modern platform like any VoIP provider, Virgin, Blueface etc etc but you can't actually easily port a number from VoIP to the PSTN if it never existed on it in the first place. The numbering systems are very inflexible and baked-in. You also generally can't move numbers from one physical PSTN exchange to another, whereas that's absolutely a non-issue on modern infrastructure.

So, you've got the rather ridiculous situation that if you say move house within Dublin form exchange area to exchange area, to keep your number, you'd be better porting it to Virgin, Blueface, Goldfish etc etc as Eir won't be able to carry it from exchange-to-exchange on the PSTN as the technology can't support it. That's not unique to Ireland either, seems to be a common problem in a lot of PSTNs.

In a financial sense, it probably makes more sense to let it fade away rather than an aggressive change of technology that annoys / disrupts people.

The mobile networks are also only making the move to full IMS type solutions at the moment too. So, there's still a lot of TDM stuff in the mix. You'll see when they've IMS complete when VoLTE and WiFi calling become fully available.

When everything's moved to IMS and more modern VoIP-based platforms, it all starts to become a lot more streamlined and easier.

For a whole variety of reasons, Ireland's PSTN is has actually been a bit of a laggard in that regard too, quite a few countries e.g. Belgium have already fully completed their migration away from TDM technology.

TDM in Ireland will just quietly die out over the next few years and most people won't even notice.

rmacm

EdgeCase wrote: »

I know Eir made some significant investments in an Ericsson's TSS/IMS platform to replace their AXE switches at 'tertiary level' and for international gateways and so on, but AFAIK (and it may have changed), the majority (if not all) of the PSTN/ISDN was definitely still running on Ericsson AXE and Alcatel E10 switching which is all TDM-based a couple of years ago.

Used to work for them too (Ericsson) Ericsson TSS and IMS I know well (for my sins). The AXE is capable of speaking SIP and was/is an integral part of the TSS solution believe it or not, it was a ton of misery though.

EdgeCase wrote: »

That wasn't the case in Germany and Belgium where Siemens sold off their telecoms devision and Nokia then pretty much abandoned their ESWD switching system quite a few years ago. There's a similar issue in BT's network where System X was totally orphaned when Marconi disappeared - that prompted a faster rush to VoIP behind the scenes than it did here.

We had an EWSD test system in the basement in Nürnberg. Never saw anyone touch it in the 4 years I was there but I'm fairly sure the auld fella who did nothing but stand outside smoking was kept around just for that. Good progress has been made here to switch everyone to a VoIP solution. Most residential subscribers are now VoIP either over DSL or MSAN PoTS.

The crew I work for now are a big Telekom customer and we've got a fairly hard cut off date for old stuff (middle of next year). Any ISDN or PoTS stuff we have needs to be migrated to an IP based connection.

EdgeCase

I know the Alcatel E10 switches also spoke SIP too in their later versions.
There was an upgrade path to "1000 MM E10" that brought VoIP capability into them in the early 2000s. I have no idea if Eir kept their fleet of them up-to-date, but there was definitely a pathway towards all-IP networking and it was used in France.

AFAIK, you can basically replace the big local switches with IMS from Ericsson or Alcatel (Now Nokia) and morph their local concentrators into being the edge layer for an VoIP softswitch.

Given that all the operators except Sky put VoIP ATAs into their modem/router/gateway devices, I would assume the migration to VoIP for VDSL customers here will be very fast and there are a lot of them.

There’s no hard cutoff date here as yet for TDM access. I’d say it will be a fade out rather than a hard end date.

I've heard that Germany, unusually, didn't make much use of carrier pre select on the PSTN, so VDSL was sold with VoIP not with POTS access like here. I'm not sure if that was to wind down the PSTN system or did to technical limitations or regulatory limitations?

Eir seems to now sell NGA (VDSL or FTTC) with VoIP now rather than POTS. Vodafone and Digiweb had been doing that for some time already, Virgin is totally VoIP and the only one that seems to have no VoBB solution is Sky. Their home gateways don't contain any VoIP gear.

I know Vodafone automatically migrated (but didn't force) people to their VoIP service in place of POTS. Eir seems to be just selling theirs unless you specifically object to it.

Marlow

EdgeCase wrote: »

So there’s a lot of information needed much like the way a URL refers to an IP address when it’s looked up on DNS servers.

DNS records tell you, where to send VoIP calls directly. That has to be a server of course. So the calling phone can in theory look that up directly.

domain.ie = _sip._tcp.domain.ie SRV 5060 voip.domain.ie

If i then dialed marlow@domain.ie , my phone would look this up on DNS, connect to voip.domain.ie on tcp port 5060 and let the server determine to ring my phone and connect the call.

The problem for said server is the ever lasting attacks on it. And that makes operating an open (to the world) sip server a real issue.

EdgeCase wrote: »

I’ve actually had the weird scenario where a UK mobile network was routing traffic into Viber. So when you called an Irish 087 number for example, if the number was registered with viber, the uk mobile network’s switches identified that and sent the traffic to the viber network instead of the PSTN, so viber rang on the app, not the phone. There was no viber app installed at the callers side.

It meant they weren’t paying termination charges if they could dump the call into viber and out of the PSTN.

That is as such not a bad idea ... IF ! there is a viber app on the recipients side that is reacting to the call. In a proper dialplan it should either ring both viber and PSTN (and then it's bonus, if the call gets taken on viber) or it should try viber first, then revert to PSTN.

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

If I move my mobile or home number to another provider, how does traffic know to flowto that provider directly?

In theory, there is a database with Comreg, that all the providers should use and update with who has what number. That's where the providers are supposed to look up and route the call.

In reality a lax and lazy approach has been taken for years, that any number you can't look up and that isn't local to you, you'll just bounce back to OpenEIR. They've not complained about that either, because they make money of every call.

There is a bit pressure from Comreg again, that the comreg database needs to be updated and used.

The PSTN market does not change radically. Ever. And certainly not fast. Also ...

in regards to phone numbers and porting: there are still loads of unlaunched exchanges that have zero broadband. Not even ADSL1. Lines on the exchanges are also not indexed in the more recent way (by ard) ... nevermind matched to an eircode (as with FTTH lines).

It's going to take a long long long time before we can shut down the last analogue exchange. And until then, we will be stuck with traditional phone numbering. Never mind changing peoples behavior.

/M

Marlow

EdgeCase wrote: »

So, you've got the rather ridiculous situation that if you say move house within Dublin form exchange area to exchange area, to keep your number, you'd be better porting it to Virgin, Blueface, Goldfish etc etc as Eir won't be able to carry it from exchange-to-exchange on the PSTN as the technology can't support it. That's not unique to Ireland either, seems to be a common problem in a lot of PSTNs.

It's a non-issue. Basically, the core is modern now. Has to be, otherwise we would have zero number porting.

So, if the telco was willing, the problem would be solved by porting your number to the core database and then mapped onto a virtual number on the exchange you are moving to.

Basically a call-forward and a reverse mapping to show the correct CLI.

The issue is not technology and it's age. The issue is willingness.

/M

EdgeCase

Well they do have a tendency to find the lowest common denominator in terms of what the technology can do and then set that as the standard and tie themselves into procedural knots.

rogue-entity

EdgeCase wrote: »

We're badly missing a non-geographical landline code that doesn't charge at some weird rate. A lot of people no longer necessarily need or want a number tied to one particular area / exchange.

0818 was supposed to do that but it doesn't quite work as mobile and landline operators charge a fortune to call it.

Did they not introduce 076 for that? Part of the reason some Public Services use 076-1 numbers was the perceived cost of 18xx numbers, particularly from mobiles.

EdgeCase wrote: »

Landlines are going to go the way of fax machines and payphones. I'd argue in favour of allocating new landlines with a code like 033 and allowing people to migrate their landline services to non-geographic codes, perhaps giving them an incentive to do so.

Norway solved this problem by scrapping area codes completely, all numbers are 8 digits without any prefixes.

Wasn't it Comreg policy to require allocation of numbers within their "minimum areas" to addresses in those areas? And if there was a shortage, to expand the subscriber number to 7 digits?

Marlow

rogue-entity wrote: »

Norway solved this problem by scrapping area codes completely, all numbers are 8 digits without any prefixes.

Denmark actually did that before Norway .. when I was a child .. so some like 30 years ago.

/M

rogue-entity

Marlow wrote: »

Denmark actually did that before Norway .. when I was a child .. so some like 30 years ago.

/M

I wonder if that's where NKom got the idea, either way, I don't expect us to follow that path.

It would have been nice if Comreg didn't abandon ENUM and allowed VoIP providers to register numbers they offer to their customers. There would still be a central authority that oversees '353' but I can't see incumbents ever wanting that on their turf.

EdgeCase

France Telecom did that in the 1980s too, but they weren't really gone, rather the numbers just include the area code.
The mistake they made in France was they only allocated 8-digits to Paris and then digits to the rest of France! So, it ran out of numbers and they ended up having to add two more digits in the early 2000s.

Basically you'd something like: Bordeaux 99 99 99 would have originally been something like (56) 99.99.99

That became 56.99.99.99 and all numbers are made uniformly xx.xx.xx.xx

Then when they (unsurprisingly) ran out of numbers, they added regional 'prefixes' (but you have to always dial them) so it became 05.56.99.99.99. They actually now look more like Irish numbers as you've logically laid out regional codes much like here.

I also vaguely remember the old cumbersome mess for dealing with Paris vs 'down the country' that existed until the early 2000s.

If you wanted to call Paris, you had to dial 16 and then you got a second dial tone, then 1 and the 8-digit Paris number.
To get "down the country" from Paris 16+peasant's number.

You also had the 'routing tone' when you dialled numbers, as the IN system was quite slow at doing some look ups on the databases and it would literally go 'bebebebebe' for about 3 seconds before the number rang out. I think that was the same in the areas of Ireland that use French Alcatel exchanges until they were updated to their current versions.

The still UK has utterly bonkers area codes because they were originally alphanumeric codes that represented the first letters of the town. That's why their codes make absolutely no logical sense anymore (01938) could be 400 miles away from (01938) In the past you would dial something like 0BE2 (0232) for BElfast and so on. They ran out of letters so they never made any sense anyway.

In general, fixed-length numbering was something that was necessary/desirable when switching systems were relatively simple - old crossbar exchanges and even early digital systems needed a lot of logic in the numbers. Whereas, modern switching systems don't as there's a level of intelligence in the network.

So, in general the Irish numbering system is unlikely to change, as it would be hugely disruptive to renumber the whole country for absolutely no gain.

I read an article on this once upon a time, and what surprised me was that international calling into Ireland was done through the UK until 1974. There was no international gateway exchanges installed here until then and calls were all manually processed. Even as late as 1979, there were only about 500-odd lines (about 400 to the UK and about 100 to Paris) to call abroad!

The national network was automated using mostly Ericsson crossbars from 1957 onwards and actually supported automatic long distance calling before the UK. Afaik, you could call Ireland from the UK directly using special area codes, but there was no way of actually addressing the Irish automatic network from outside the UK until 1974! All calls would have been placed via the operator.

Amazing when you think how much of a backwater we were in those days.

In general, the Irish setup for numbering is OK though. There are far more confusing systems in use in a lot of places.

Marlow

You're actually a bit wrong there.

Fixed length number makes dialing a blizz. Because first of all, your phone doesn't wander off dialing the number if you're slow dialing it.

Take the example Denmark/Norway: it knows, that if your number doesn't start with 00 or 10, then it's going to be 8 digits. So after 8 digits are entered, it dials instantly .. the whole block.

Variable length numbers also have an advantage. Like in Germany, when you ordered ISDN in P-t-P configuration (that's a PABX connection), you'd have an infinite amount of numbers, disregardless of you just having 2 lines (or more).

That's because you could hang any amount of digits behind your number and it would send them through.

Made for some real interesting ways of implementing things.

While with a fixed block, the Telco made more money assigning you more numbers.

In Ireland it's just both: the messy dialplan with no sense how long the number is ... it varies for each county ... and still having to pay for each assigned prefix.

/M

EdgeCase

Well, yeah it's handy in some ways but it's very inflexible.

The PSTN is quite sophisticated in how it handles dialling though compared to most ATAs.

When you start dialling the number, the local exchange is already analysing it in real time. So, it knows if you dial 021 that it is expecting to get another 7 digits before it completes the call, or 01 + 7. It will wait something like 15 or 20 seconds before dumping the connection if there aren't enough digits.

Also if you dial say 021 999 8 and no such number exists, it will not even go as far as sending the call. It already knows that's invalid and you'll get a tone/announcement before you even key the whole number. So, any errors are actually caught locally before they even get sent beyond that exchange.

With ATAs, you're really trying to mimic most of that behaviour with a dial plan as they're missing a 'send' button like a mobile. With a lot of VoIP phones, you can dial "en bloc" like a mobile i.e. key the number, press 'dial' or pick a line or whatever.

Most ATAs in use, tend to use # as 'send'. Try dealing a number on a Virgin line for example and hitting # and it will complete the call instantly. Otherwise, it's just relying on a crude 3 or 4 second time out to know you've stopped.

Marlow

That behavior isn't only limited to ATAs. It also happens on switch-boards and PABX systems.

It goes way further back. ANd it's a problem way further back.

/M

rogue-entity

EdgeCase wrote: »

So, in general the Irish numbering system is unlikely to change, as it would be hugely disruptive to renumber the whole country for absolutely no gain.

Still, we never ended up with the German trend of just making new numbers longer while leaving old shorter numbers grandfathered in.

I wonder if using 052 numbers for 0504 is a precursor to merging 0504 into the 052 area, a way of staving off shortages or just a limitation of the infrastructure.

EdgeCase

There were various ways of doing it in the older tech, but in general in the system here it was all about analysing the number as it was dialled.

The old system didn't care what the number length was as the route was literally contained within the number. Even when technology moved on, that concept was largely retained and then you added more and more intelligence.

When VoIP ATAs and PBXs don't have access to the databases behind it, there's no way they can do anything other than implement a complex dial plan or use en bloc dialling like mobiles, or a time out as send.

The most likely explanation for the German setup was that the very old numbers were allocated on something like Siemens "Rotary" switches, a very old form of step-by-step switching. It didn't have any ability to perform number analysis at all, so you would have had to physically rebuild the exchange to change the numbers as each digit literally moved a mechanical component.

Those likely coexisted with digital switching for a time in the 80s / early 90s.

In Ireland, there was a big rollout of digital switching planned in about 1979 with the first of them going live in 1981. They co-existed with various eras of analogue crossbar switching, but it was generally 'modern' stuff form the 1970s, not prehistoric technology and it was largely able to do a lot of routing and integration with digital switching and computerisation.

We did have periods of time when Dublin and Cork had mixtures of 6 and 7 digit numbers as they were going through changes. The system was always capable of handling that but it was just way way easier to have them the same length.

rogue-entity

Marlow wrote: »

Variable length numbers also have an advantage. Like in Germany, when you ordered ISDN in P-t-P configuration (that's a PABX connection), you'd have an infinite amount of numbers, disregardless of you just having 2 lines (or more).

That's because you could hang any amount of digits behind your number and it would send them through.

I wonder if that's what allowed for things like this:

+49 681 302-0, +49 681 302-2221 and so on.

On the note about fixed digits, it also makes configuring dialling rules for PABXs quite easy, you know any number you dial in Norway/Denmark or the UK/US will be 8 or 10 digits, after the country code. We might get there, eventually, if Comreg just lengthens numbers in places like Galway or Yoghal to 7 digits (and they might consider splitting 01 into separate codes too).

Marlow

EdgeCase wrote: »

There were various ways of doing it in the older tech, but in general in the system here it was all about analysing the number as it was dialled.

The old system didn't care what the number length was as the route was literally contained within the number. Even when technology moved on, that concept was largely retained and then you added more and more intelligence.

When VoIP ATAs and PBXs don't have access to the databases behind it, there's no way they can do anything other than implement a complex dial plan or use en bloc dialling like mobiles, or a time out as send.

Where the whole routing as you dial process got broken first is in ISDN systems. While those systems should be able to pass things through to the telco switch etc., some manufacturers took a serious lazy approach and you ended up only being able to dial 'en block'.

/M

Marlow

rogue-entity wrote: »

I wonder if that's what allowed for things like this:

+49 681 302-0, +49 681 302-2221 and so on.

That's what I meant. One thing it really catered for was for example fax-to-email services. You could literally have 1000's of numbers on the same trunk without it costing you a dime more.

Or direct dial to every single desk in the building.

The way it's done in a lot of other places (like here), is that you get an IVR, when you dial the main number and then make your selection or dial the extension of the party you want to reach. Not needed in the likes of Germany. You dial straight in.

/M

EdgeCase

I'm not aware of anywhere other than Germany that did it that way though.

Mostly, including in Ireland and the US/Canada etc, we just allocated a block of normal numbers to a PBX for direct-inward-dial. That was done even in the pre-ISDN days where you'd signalling going on with tones between the local switch (which could have even been electromechanical) and the PBX.

There would have only been a handful of POTS lines in the old days, or ISDN channels coming in, and the switch just sends the extension number either digitally or in the old days as multifrequency tones, and the PBX routes it to the extension.

You certainly don't have to do it as an IVR, and that isn't done in most cases in large companies here. You'd typically have a prefix for the company and extensions with regular phone numbers assigned to them. You'd save money though by not giving everyone DID. It's definitely cheaper to not rent numbering that isn't going to be used.

The PSTN was capable of doing versions of hosted PBX services (CENTREX) too. They just installed analogue or ISDN lines to each extension and the POTS switch behaved like a PBX on those lines. Bloody expensive though and rarely used from what gather, other than in very large businesses with small branch offices and so on.

From a technical point of view, you could probably have done the German approach here. I can't see how there'd have been any great technical difficulty in doing so, but I don't know that it would have been too desirable when you were calling in from abroad, or from PBXs, VoIP etc ..

Marlow

EdgeCase wrote: »

I'm not aware of anywhere other than Germany that did it that way though.

Maybe Austria and Switzerland. Maybe !!

But yes, it's very much a german approach to things.

And the irish numbering very much allowed for that approach .. but as with everything, things only get implemented half arsed here

Same as for example in Denmark and Germany you could get ADSL on analog and ISDN. No bother. In Ireland, when you ordered ADSL and had an ISDN line, the line would just fail No explanation given. Took me 3 months to figure that one out.

/M

EdgeCase

These things just evolved and grew into their own bureaucratic / technocratic selves over the decades. There wasn't ever really any grand plan to be VoIP friendly as it was never envisaged when they were evolving, so I guess we are stuck with what we have.

Also, a lot of VoIP development and ATAs tend to be quite US-centric and they've very, very inflexible fixed length numbering (again for historical reasons).

The old US approach was very weird. All old area codes used there had a 1 or 0 in the middle. The switch looked for numbers with a 1 or 0 after the first digit and that's how it knew you were trying to dial long-distance and it would wait for 10 digits.

It was years later they introduced the 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX format as they ran out of area codes with a 0 or 1 in the middle.

In general the US plan is a total mess now, but it is quite VoIP friendly as the numbers are uniformly 10 digits.

The main driver in Ireland was TE used to try and keep the numbers as short as possible as they considered it more user friendly. Your finger would get sore dialling 10+ digits with a dial!! That's why we had a lot of 5-digit numbers and tons of area codes. That theory was blown away by the dominance of mobile phones (at least 4X more active mobile numbers than fixed line now)

You can write a dial plan for Ireland easily enough though. It doesn't have THAT many area codes and the numbering info is all published on comer.ie if anyone's ever looking for it.

If you were going to build a numbering system from scratch in 2018, you'd do it very differently.

Cuddlesworth

EdgeCase wrote: »

If you were going to build a numbering system from scratch in 2018, you'd do it very differently.

Pretty much the story around most tech we use.

EdgeCase

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Pretty much the story around most tech we use.

Especially stuff that had its original concept stretched into new uses... credit cards... 16 digit number + expiry date + a lot of trust thrown into the World Wide Web and we wonder why it's a big ball of fraud.

EdgeCase

On the OP's question

Is it possible the numbers you're looking at are hosted on VoIP?
It's not beyond the realms of possibility that one of the operators e.g. a stand-alone VoIP provider, one of the wISPs, Digifone, Vodafone or the cable company is allocating numbers in 052 XXX XXXX to customers in Thurles.

Eir is also connecting new customers to VoIP using the ATA in the modem if they have EirFibre (including VDSL)

I've seen a few West Cork businesses with area codes that were in 023 instead of 027 and so on.

If you put the specific number that's showing up as 052 in here

https://www.comreg.ie/industry/licensing/numbering/number-assignments-availability/

You'll see which telco owns the bloc, if it's not OpenEir / Eir you'll have a fair idea it's a VoIP assignment.