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Telecom - Staff Letter addressed to Kelly T. Walsh (Canadian Steering Committee on Numbering)

Ottawa, 18 December 2024

Reference: 1011-NOC2023-0092

BY EMAIL

Kelly T. Walsh
Chair
Canadian Steering Committee on Numbering
Chair-CSCN@cnac.ca

Subject:  CO codes for TBP Testing

  1. This is in response to the letter you filed with the Commission on 6 December 2024.
  2. In Telecom Regulatory Policy 2024-26, the Commission directed local exchange carriers and wireless carriers to implement thousand block pooling (TBP) by 6 October 2025.
  3. In your letter, you indicated that prior to and to facilitate TBP implementation, end-to-end production testing would be required to allow Canadian telecommunication service providers (TSPs) to test various TBP-related functions, especially where they involve interactions with the Number Portability Administration Center and the Business Integrated Routing and Rating Database System.
  4. Consequently, you requested that the Canadian Numbering Administrator (CNA) be authorized to temporarily issue numbering resources for up to 14 central office (CO) codes to enable this testing. These 14 codes would be selected from the most recent Numbering Plan Area overlays so as to have no impact on the exhaust of Canada’s numbering resources and would be sufficient for all 127 Canadian TSPs holding CO codes to conduct pre-TBP implementation testing. TSPs wishing to conduct such testing would have to request temporary resources between 1 April 2025 and 1 July 2025.
  5. Commission staff supports efforts that will advance and ensure an effective TBP implementation which includes the CNA issuing the requested 14 CO codes for pre-TBP implementation testing. In this regard, Commission staff expects
    1. The allocation of the 14 identified CO codes to have no impact on the exhaust of Canada’s numbering resources;
    2. Canadian TSPs desiring temporary resources for the purpose of pre-TBP implementation testing to request the required resources as of 1 April 2025 and no later than 1 July 2025;
    3. Canadian TSPs holding temporary testing resources to return these resources to the CNA no later than 6 October 2025;
    4. The CNA to initiate reclamation procedures for any temporary resources that have not been returned by TSPs by 8 October 2025; and
    5. The CNA to confirm to the Commission no later than 13 October 2025 that all temporary resources assigned to TSPs for the purpose of pre-TBP implementation testing have been returned to the CNA.
  6. For any questions related to this letter, we invite to you to communicate with Étienne Robelin at etienne.robelin@crtc.gc.ca.

Sincerely,

Original signed by

Michel Murray
Director, Dispute Resolution & Regulatory Implementation
Telecommunications

c.c.:  Etienne Robelin, CRTC, etienne.robelin@crtc.gc.ca

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