NEWS: Another Angle To Yesterdays ATTWS Filed Report to FCC

While I strive not to be TOO repetetive with these postings, I do find
different versions of the story provide different bits and pieces of info.
Not one to "censor" I will bring it all to you.

ATTWS Details LNP SNAFUS to FCC
Dan Meyer [email protected]
http://www.rcrnews.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?newsId=16238#top
Following up on a Federal Communications Commission inquiry into its local
number portability implementation, AT&T Wireless Services Inc. filed a
report with the government agency yesterday outlining the troubles the
carrier has encountered with the LNP mandate, as well as the steps it has
taken to fix the issues that had resulted in some customers waiting more
than a week to have their wireless numbers ported in or ported out from the
carrier.

In the report, AT&T Wireless admitted to difficulties in its LNP processes,
which it attributed to a combination of factors, including technical
limitations in its clearinghouse vendor's systems and insufficient
inter-carrier testing prior to the Nov. 24 LNP deadline.

AT&T Wireless explained that its LNP vendor Nightfire, which is an affiliate
of NeuStar, ran into difficulties when problems with its system produced
delays in each step of the porting process that eventually created a
"considerable backlog of port-out requests." Those problems included taking
too long to verify and submit the port requests to AT&T Wireless for
customer validation that eventually led to the carrier "routinely"
responding to those requests after the "due date" and "time" of the port
request had expired and a resulting "resolution required-due date expired"
response to porting requests.

The Nightfire system also delayed transmitting responses back to the
requesting carriers, which AT&T Wireless said was compounded by glitches in
the Nightfire interface used by its porting agents to resolve the porting
issues that caused additional delays in resolving the backlog problems.

AT&T Wireless noted that the insufficient testing with Telecommunications
Services Inc., which most of the other wireless carriers selected for their
porting services, was the result of two software upgrades TSI performed
within the last four weeks prior to Nov. 24 that "shut down critical
inter-carrier communications testing."

In addition, AT&T Wireless claimed TSI's software was designed to reject
port requests with "due dates" outside of the Number Portability
Administration Center's business operating hours even though the carriers
agreed that porting requests made outside the NPAC's 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
operating hours on an automatic basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week. TSI
had not had a chance to comment on this to RCR Wireless News by press time.

"These factors resulted in significant delays in processing both requests
that [AT&T Wireless] received from other carriers to port out and requests
that [AT&T Wireless] issued to other carriers to port in numbers," the
carrier said in its letter to FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief
John Muleta.

AT&T Wireless added that as soon as it identified the problems it "devoted
substantial resources to solving them, prioritizing resolution of port-out
requests over resolution of [AT&T Wireless'] own port-in requests."

The carrier added that it has worked closely with its LNP vendor NeuStar to
facilitate the corrections resulting in AT&T Wireless' ability to respond to
more than 90 percent of the backlogged port requests, its ability to respond
to port requests within Wireless Intercarrier Communications Interface
Specifications guidelines and specifically responding to port requests with
a valid response within 30 minutes greater than 75 percent of the time.
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I can hear those big, bureaucratic feet at ATT draggin' way over here
in South Carolina!

Hell, you'd think the company had no idea how POTS or Long Lines
businesses work, instead of being the one who invented them.


Larry W4CSC

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