On 9 Nov 2004 20:41:11 -0800, meshko@gmail.com (MK) wrote:
> How do comapnies like ISPs roll out hundreds of local access numbers
> all over the country? Do they really have local points of presence all
> over the US? I talked to our phone company but they claim that the
Few ISPs own their own modems in every market they serve, and many,
including some of the biggest ones, own no modems at all; ISPs usually
buy access to modems on a wholesale basis from a handful of companies
that specialize in that product -- most notably MCI/UUNet and Level 3.
These companies generally have a single physical POP per region (three
to five states for the larger companies, maybe two to three per state
for some of the smaller regional ones, like Pac-West and O1 in
California) and either a) backhaul PRIs from various cities and towns
to their POP (most common with MCI/UUNet), or b) are a CLEC and order
access trunks from their POP to tandems and end offices in the areas
where they have numbers.
If you're trying to get local numbers in a range of cities, most CLECs
offer "superPOP" or "wide area" services that will provide you with
numbers in multiple local calling areas that come in on the same PRIs
or T1s. If you only need a few numbers (say, for your home or a small
office) and expect relatively low call volume, nearly any VoIP
provider can provide you numbers, thanks to the fact that the
companies that provide numbers and modems to ISPs and numbers to VoIP
providers tend to be one and the same. :) There's generally no
reason to resort to remote call forwarding unless you're trying to get
local numbers in an area served by a small independent ILEC that CLECs
can't touch.
Stanley Cline -- sc1 at roamer1 dot org -- http://www.roamer1.org/
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might
be a law against it by that time." -/usr/games/fortune
Stanley Cline (sc1-news@roamer1.org)