A few months ago the FCC announced that it will be opening up a new 833 toll-free number block and that these numbers will actually be auctioned off – which is something new that hasn’t been tried before.
I’d like to own 833-SIX-PACK if anyone wants to donate it. Maybe that would inspire me to actually go to the gym. Maybe Budweiser will buy that one though.
Of course, one consequence of the new toll-free NPA is that all telcos need to update their switch translations to support the 833 prefix. Unless of course you saw that 888, 877, 866, 855 and 844 had been released and somehow predicted the pattern?
If you’re unsure how to add the 833 toll-free NPA to your Metaswitch then I’ve written a little MOP for you to follow.
833 Toll-Free Metaswitch MOP: Basic Version
I’ve created two versions of this MOP. The first is short and simple, and will handle 99.8% of calls just fine – but there’s also a more complex MOP afterwards to cover those edge cases.
- Log-in to MetaView Explorer and navigate in the object tree to Call Feature Server -> Trunk Routing and Policy Services.
- Right click on your active Config Set and copy it.
- In your copied config set open Number Validation Tables and find Number Validation Table 12 labelled “Digits Non-Geographic NPA table”.
- Within that table there should be entries for each of the toll-free NPAs, take a look at (e.g.) “844 toll-free call” and make a note of the Routing Attribute Set and the Next Number Validation Table.
- Right click on the NV Table 12 object and add a new Number Validation entry with the following values:
Name: 833 Toll-Free call
Number: 833XXXXXXX
Routing Attribute Set: <whatever you noted>
Next action: Look up
Next Number Validation Table: <whatever you noted> - Apply your changes.
- Click on your new Config Set and enable and activate it.
- Click on Trunk Routing and Policy Services and changed the active Trunk Routing Config Set to be your new config set.
833 Toll-Free Metaswitch MOP: Advanced Version
After completing all the steps in your basic version, there are a few other places where you may need to add the 833 toll-free NPA, but they mostly cover fairly obscure scenarios.
The 0+10D filtering table AND the 1+10D filtering table AND the 7D / 10D filtering table (sometimes named 10D filtering table) need entries matching 833555 and 833976 to ensure that these calls are treated as toll-free calls (rather than matching XXX555 or XXX976 operator or premium calls respectively). You can copy existing examples for 800 or 888.
Take a look in NV Table 17 and NV Table 16 to see if there are any entries explicitly matching on inbound toll-free calls from trunks. These will likely be present if you have another switch querying your Metaswitch CFS for toll-free calls.
With standard configuration, your trunk routing should be matching on the US Call Type “Toll-Free”attribute rather than the exact number, so there shouldn’t be any need to modify trunk routing.
If you want to double check for any other places that need changing, I’d recommend exporting your config set to a file, copying that file (using WinSCP) off your MetaView Server to your local machine, and then searching through that text file for (e.g.) 877 to make sure you’ve covered every place where these numbers exist in your translations.
As always, if you find yourself in need to translations assistance, please contact us with more information about your situation.
