Summer 2007
LEC Newsletter
It has been quite a summer. We’ve experienced some price and quality issues with our underlying LD carrier, and – as I’ve told many of you – we feel like the gas station attendant pumping $3 gas who is on the receiving end of customer venting.
I know that you and your staff get that same feeling when you visit your local café or church.
As with all products, the price of LD ultimately has to cover its costs. Competition and technology may disrupt the apple cart for a while, but no business can continuously offer its products at a loss and expect to stay in business.
There have been a couple of ways that underlying carriers have been trying to reduce their costs. Least cost routing software is in place virtually everywhere. Some underlying carriers also use IP routing – and other access bypass or minimization schemes – to complete traffic. (Onvoy does offer, on a dedicated basis, direct connectivity to IP LD carriers – but the mix of carriers we use to handle your switched (access paying) traffic is all religiously TDM.)
Unfortunately, the lower the price, the lower the quality. At some point, you can’t go any lower on the price side without affecting call quality. Your customers wouldn’t stand for it, no matter what the savings.
We believe the best way to move forward is to work together with you to control costs, and to develop alternative and competitive pricing. Onvoy’s positive relationships with its carriers, coupled with the buying power provided by the aggregation of your traffic, provides us a unique bargaining position when seeking solutions. You may be able to solve this on your own for a while, but costs-versus-revenue will ultimately catch up to you.
By sticking together, we should be able to compete with Humpty Dumpty being put back together again. After all, that’s why a number of us founded Onvoy in the first place.
Thank you for your continued support. If you’ve got any questions, concerns, or ideas, please drop me a line.
Onvoy announced last week that it has signed an agreement to merge with Zayo Bandwidth, a wholly owned subsidiary of Communications Infrastructure Investments, LLC. Through the agreement, which is scheduled to close during the fourth quarter of 2007, Zayo will purchase all of the Onvoy stock.
In the words of Zayo CEO Dan Caruso, “Onvoy has a unique and long-standing partnership with dozens of greater Minnesota local exchange carriers. Continuing and further strengthening these relationships is a high priority for Zayo Bandwidth.”
To read the press release issued with respect to the merger, please click here.
In January 2007, Onvoy announced plans for new tandem homing arrangements with each ILEC currently homed on Onvoy’s Nortel DMS500. For this network rearrangement, Onvoy is using dual Alcatel-Lucent LCS tandems located in Plymouth and Minneapolis, providing site diversity while increasing service protection for our ILEC customers.
Although Onvoy has had had to delay the ILEC conversion, we’ll be moving forward as outstanding issues are resolved. To date, all Interexchange Carriers (IXCs) have completed provisioning trunk facilities to the new tandems, and six ILEC companies have completed migration.
When the moratorium is lifted, Onvoy will contact each ILEC to discuss the activity associated with the re-homing. Based on a mutually agreed upon schedule, the ILEC will initiate Local Exchange Routing Guide updates, and Onvoy will initiate the work orders and issue Design Layout Records to the ILEC.
Throughout the ILEC migration, Onvoy will coordinate with the IXCs and will monitor traffic to ensure it is appropriately re-routed on the scheduled date of the ILEC re-homing.
Again, thank you for your support and participation in this exciting project.
Since December 2006, Onvoy has been moving our Directory Assistance (DA) wholesale customers (CLECs and ILECs) to a new IP-based call center system. The new system has more capacity than our legacy system, and its flexibility allows specific front-end and back-end messages to DA end-users.
With this move, there will be a few changes as to how Onvoy provides EMI call records and how some of the calls are handled:
- As always, Onvoy will create EMI call records for those companies that require them, and we’ll continue to make them accessible via FTP
- DA and Directory Assistance Call Completion (DACC) call records will reflect the end-user calling number, not the end-user billed number. In these cases:
- The LEC will need to determine who is to be billed
- DA surcharges will be on a DA EMI file
- DACC surcharge and usage will be on a Toll EMI file
The will also be changes for DA as it relates to the privacy indicator used in CNAM blocking. The privacy indicator (if normally used by an end-user) will no longer be passed along for a DACC call, as IP call center systems do not have a field for this. Blocking is not typically a factor for business end-users, as most businesses cannot subscribe to per-line blocking. The privacy indicator may be a factor, however, for some residential end-users. In order to mitigate potential customer complaints, Onvoy is available to work with LEC customers to build a database of end-users who wish to restrict DACC. As a proactive measure, the LEC can provide us with a list of end-users who currently employ call blocking, and Onvoy will screen for the numbers and restrict DACC service. As a reactive measure, if complaints are received from a “privacy” end-user, Onvoy will add the ANI to the DACC restrict database.
If you are an Onvoy DA customer, we will be contacting you to determine a migration schedule that works for you and will be glad to speak with you in depth about the changes that will accompany this move to our new DA system.Onvoy provides ubiquitous Directory Assistance listings coverage by using three national DA providers to facilitate calls to your area. We encourage you to take advantage of Onvoy’s capability to upload your LEC DA listings to the three largest national DA databases. Providing your DA listings to Onvoy helps keep traffic on the public switched telephone network and generates access revenues for your company.
DA operators across the country have a choice of which national database to use to obtain their DA data. The more databases your customers’ listings are in, the more likely it is that calls will be generated to your customers. If your company is not already using Onvoy for this service, you may be missing out on potential call revenue.
While we require a Letter of Agency, there is no fee to participate in Onvoy’s DA listings program. Please contact Shirley Monson to start maximizing your DA listings potential.
We regret to announce that Pat Egan, Project Coordinator, is no longer with Onvoy. Pat has abandoned the mosquitoes of Minnesota for the sun of Florida, and is currently lying on a beach sipping pina coladas. Please direct any requests that you would typically send to Pat to Customerservice@onvoy.com.
Like many independent LECs, Alpine Communications manages a growing internal Local Area Network serving their administrative, technical and customer service teams, and they also operate their own rapidly expanding Wide Area Network and ISP data center. And, like most other independents, the challenge of remaining competitive leaders in their serving areas through growth, stability, and technological innovation has continually been met, largely through their internal expertise and diligence.
Working closely with his IT Systems Manager Dirk Buckman and other staff members, Chris Hopp, General Manager for Alpine, became concerned that the Alpine network must keep pace with increasingly frequent stretches of capacity, or he reasoned it would show signs of strain, impacting subscribers who rely upon Alpine. While the current hardware had been stable and had generally withstood the test of time, he knew it would be prudent to begin rotating new servers into the mix to replace the existing systems. Recognizing that Alpine’s business vitality is increasingly dependent on the success of his IT infrastructure, Chris knew he needed the help of an outside data communications consultant with strong telecom industry experience, and turned to Onvoy.
- Use a distributed server services approach
- Bind services to IP addresses, rather than to specific servers
- Disable and/or remove unneeded services
- Secure your perimeter (both public and private) using appropriate firewalls
- Make version updates and patches a part of your routine
- Develop and enforce a password policy, including forced rotation
- Design, document, and implement device redundancy and failover
- Review and test your backup procedures and media on a scheduled basis
- Design, document, and implement your disaster recovery plan
- Periodically review your data network with an eye for both growth and obsolescence
Onvoy’s LEC showcase and 9th annual golf tournament took place on June 4-5 in Shakopee, Minnesota. For the first time, Onvoy combined our LEC showcase with our golf event.
We heard from Cisco on IPTV, Head End Solutions, and VoD; and from Onvoy’s Product Managers and General Managers regarding the future of personalized voice services, wireless carrier backhaul, Ethernet over copper, and IT services.
Onvoy’s 10th Annual Golf Tournament has already been scheduled for June 3, 2008, so mark your calendars now. Due to the overwhelmingly positive response we received regarding the course and facilities, we will again be holding our event at Stonebrooke Golf Club in Shakopee, and we look forward to seeing you there.
September 10 – 12
Martin Group Annual Technology Conference
The Sheraton Nashville Downtown
Nashville, TN
www.martin-group.com
September 11 – 14
MACMHP 2007 Conference
The DECC
Duluth, MN
www.macmhp.org
September 19 – 20
MART Customer Service Group Fall Conference
The Holiday Inn
Elk River, MN
www.mnart.org/calendar.htm
September 27 – 29
National Pediatric Telehealth Conference
The Hyatt
Bloomington, MN
www.cpnonline.org
October 1 – October 2
NTCA Telco Key Employee Conference
Hilton Minneapolis
Minneapolis, MN
www.ntca.org/ka/ka-2.cfm?Folder_ID=765
October 11 – 12
MART Annual Meeting
The Northland Inn
Brooklyn Park, MN
www.mnart.org/calendar.htm
October 15 – 16
WSTA Fall Conference & Exhibits
LaCrosse Center
LaCrosse, WI
www.wsta.info/events.htm