On 5 February 2024, the CRTC issued Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2024-26 - Implementing thousand-block pooling (the “Policy”). In this Policy, the Commission asked the telecommunications industry to make various recommendations to strengthen the number assignment guidelines to preserve geographic North American Numbering Plan (NANP) resources.
The Canadian Steering Committee on Numbering (“CSCN”) has prepared a report for the Commission (Read here: bit.ly/CSCN-TIF-118) with a number of key recommendations along with implementation timelines that will have a major impact on how many carriers manage their Telephone Number (“TN”) resources.
Below is a summary of some of the key recommendations from the report:
Current TN demand forecasting and filing requirements be expanded such that carriers forecast TN growth requirements at the Exchange level (as opposed to by Area Code complex), twice per year. This will require carriers to separately track demand in as many as three thousand Exchange Areas (“Exchanges”) across Canada depending on the carrier’s local service footprint as opposed to the eighteen Area Code complexes carriers use for forecasting purposes today,
Carriers must provide a rolling twelve-month forecast of TN demand (also at the Exchange level) which they must file with the Canadian Numbering Administrator (“CNA”) at least twice per year,
Carriers must report on the overall utilization of their assigned TN resources according to prescribed classifications (e.g., quantity assigned to end users, quantity in aging pools, quantity used for administrative purposes and quantity assigned to resellers that are unused or not accounted for) at the Exchange level on a semi-annual basis, and
When a carrier requests additional TN resources, they must now support their requests with a 12 months-to-exhaust forecast at the Exchange level and a certification that at least 75% of the carrier’s TN resources are assigned to end users. Failure to do so without a CRTC waiver will result in a denial of the application.
The new TN utilization reporting requirements will permit the CNA to detect problematic situations concerning individual carriers, such as:
(i) large amounts of unassigned/unreported TNs that have been allocated by a carrier to resellers,
(ii) very low utilization of TN number resources in an Exchange Area which could be indicative of a carrier not returning excess inventory to the Thousands-Block pools as appropriate, and
(iii) poor inventory management as evidenced by no reporting of Aging TNs, Reserved TNs, Unassigned/Unreported Resold TNs and/or Administrative TNs.
Any reporting anomalies may be challenged by the CNA directly to the carrier in question and escalated as necessary to CRTC staff.
Stay tuned for additional articles on new ordering processes for Thousands Blocks which are necessary to preserve the current six-digit routing used in most switch translations, and network testing requirements to support proper routing decisions when carriers start activating Thousands Blocks. If your business requires access to additional TN resources to support growth in your customer base, planning for compliance with the new reporting requirements should begin now starting with an assessment of your current TN inventory management system. Need more help? Schedule a consultation with COMsolve today: www.comsolveinc.com/contact-us