Re: phone fun, was GeoIP database issues and the real world consequences

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

> 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