nanog mailing list archives
Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences
From: Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2016 12:25:23 -0700
On Apr 13, 2016, at 12:15 , John Levine <johnl () iecc com> wrote:Actually, it's probably both US and Canadian. When you call an 8xx toll free number, the switch uses a database to route the call to whatever carrier handles it, who can then do whatever they want. The provider for that number, Callture, is in Ontario but they can terminate the calls anywhere, and send each call to a different place.I was careful to pick a number on a Canadian company's website.Doesn't matter. In the NANP, toll free 8xx numbers are routed by carrier, not by geography, and it looks like this company handles traffic in the US, too. It's entirely possible that when you call that number during the day you get someone in Toronto, and when you call it at night, you get an answering service in the Phillipines.Also, in fairness, the US is about 90% of the NANP, so guessing that an 8XX number is in the US is usually correct.That's another way of saying that it's deliberately wrong 10% of the time for pan-NANP prefixes. Better to say "I don't know" than to just guess.Really, they're not assigned to locations, they're assigned to carriers. They can even be assigned to different carriers in different countries although that's not common. More to the point, saying "somewhere in the US", even if it's occasionally wrong, will not send nitwits with guns to a particular location. NANP geographical numbers can be located to a switch (give or take number portability within a LATA), but non-geographic numbers can really go anywhere. On the third hand, it's still true that the large majority of them are in the U.S.
Would you agree that 408-921 is a geographic number? I guarantee you that there are phones within that prefix within US/Calif/LATA-1 and also some well outside of that, probably not even in the same country. I will also guarantee you that those phones move locations quite frequently. Owen
Current thread:
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences, (continued)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Ken Chase (Apr 11)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Hugo Slabbert (Apr 11)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Josh Luthman (Apr 11)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Ken Chase (Apr 11)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Jean-Francois Mezei (Apr 12)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Theodore Baschak (Apr 12)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences David Cantrell (Apr 13)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 13)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences David Cantrell (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Owen DeLong (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John R. Levine (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Owen DeLong (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Larry Sheldon (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences John Levine (Apr 13)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Leo Bicknell (Apr 14)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Gary Buhrmaster (Apr 14)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Josh Reynolds (Apr 14)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Larry Sheldon (Apr 14)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Larry Sheldon (Apr 14)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Hugo Slabbert (Apr 11)
- Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Larry Sheldon (Apr 14)
- Re: GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences Ken Chase (Apr 11)