In the mid-2000s, Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) and Network Service Providers (NSPs) alerted Somos of the improper use of CIC 0110 by some Responsible Organizations (Resp Orgs) for routing Toll-Free calls in the local networks of the LECs. According to the TFNRegistry™ Functions Tariff, Resp Orgs may route to a Carrier only if the Resp Org has notified and obtained prior acceptance from any LEC or Interexchange Carrier (IXC) which traffic for a specific Toll-Free Number (TFN) will be routed. According to the LECs and NSPs, this authorization is necessary so that LECs can establish business agreements by which it can bill for Toll-Free services.
According to the LECs/NSPs, carrier acceptance has not always been obtained (which is a violation of the tariff requirement for Carrier notification and acceptance). Some Resp Orgs have provided routing information for traffic to a LEC or NSP using CIC 0110 without having prior acceptance from the LEC receiving the traffic. In addition, a LEC may agree to accept traffic from a Resp Org and instruct that Resp Org to route traffic to the LEC using the CIC 0110. This may be the case even though the LEC does not have a carrier agreement with the NSP and cannot validly authorize the Resp Org to use the NSP’s network to route calls to the LEC.
The TFNRegistry has the capability to enforce the tariff requirement that Resp Orgs obtain authorizations from any and all LEC(s) or IXC(s) to which traffic for a specific TFN will be routed. This feature enables LECs to disallow Resp Orgs from sending unauthorized Toll-Free traffic over the LECs’ networks. This feature also enables NSPs to disallow Toll-Free traffic over the NSPs network without authorization.
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