[VoiceOps] Ambiguous dial plan pattern matching

[Nathan Anderson]

Sorry for what probably will end up sounding like a rather noob-ish question, but I still consider myself a relative greenhorn...

We are a VoSP.  With the advent here in the U.S. of area code overlays, 10-digit dialing, and even carriers/vendors (VoIP and wireless, mostly) continuing to blur the distinction between local and toll calls (at least from the end-user's perspective), it is not an uncommon thing to run into service platforms where both 7- and 10-digit dialing is supported, but the 7-digit support feels (again, from the customer's perspective) half-assed, at least compared to the ILEC's implementation.  But if the customer still lives in an area where 10-digit dialing is not mandatory, he/she expects it to work, so we "have" to provide it.

It feels inferior because back when when local destinations were always within the same NPA as the caller, the number pattern rules were simple, at least for domestic calls: if it starts with a 1, it will be an 11-digit number, and if it starts with 2-9, it will be a 7-digit number; but now, if it starts with 2-9, it could be either 7 or 10 digits, and you won't know for sure which one it is unless the caller has entered more than 7 digits.  And in these ambiguous scenarios where two destination patterns partially overlap, it's the "did the caller stop dialing" part that's hard to measure, right?  So now you have CPE gear generating dialtone (whether PBX or ATA) which either feels to the caller like it is extremely slow at putting the call through, or which requires the caller to remember to do something special at the end of a 7-digit destination (like dial # or something to signal they're done) if they don't want to wait.  (There's also been a similar phenomenon for a while with PBX systems that use outbound routing prefixes like '9' in order to make it unambiguous whether you are dialing an internal extension or an external destination.)

Now obviously the CO switch can't read minds either, so in areas without mandatory 10-digit dialing, it seems inescapable that it would have to determine whether the user is done dialing via some kind of timeout mechanism as well.  But it sure seems like most Class 5 switches must have a much more intelligent ambiguous number pattern matching algorithm than most CPE gear does since, as a general rule, people that still have an analog loop to the CO these days and regularly dial 7 digits don't experience (e.g.) upwards of a 5-second delay between when they've finished dialing and when they hear their first ringback.

The question is, what's the secret sauce, and why can't that same algorithm be implemented in CPE gear?

-- 
Nathan Anderson
First Step Internet, LLC
nathana at fsr.com