Got a message from the Number Portability guys. What a pain.... they zipped the MS Word doc, then renamed the file with a .lnp extension instead of a .zip (to bypass any virus catchers), then attached it to an email. Once got to the Word doc, renamed and unzipped to find the multiple pages started as follows: Future Release Change Orders - Updated On: 05/01/04 Apr. ‘04: During the April 2004 APT meeting the group reviewed the fourteen change orders in the APT working document (focusing on the first eight change orders). Since there are additional change orders in the monthly change order summary document, it was agreed that a separate list should be provided of available change orders separate from the fourteen in the APT working document. That is the purpose of this working document. Categorization/prioritization has NOT been factored into this list. That activity is scheduled to take place in a future LNPAWG meeting. LOST AND FOUND Reading this (and the past year of similar LNP related documents) got reality setting in, so the Utah ILECs petitioned the State PUC for a one year delay to implement wireless number portability. It was granted. Western Wireless objected. The commission countered by asking if the ILECs could do it in six months. Listening to the work we've got to do reminds me of the Tower of Babble coming closer to home. One of the regional companies says its costs to do portability averages 41 cents per customer per month for five years! My company is so rural, FedEx calls us sometimes to find out if they should head out for a delivery [in our service area] that day. Or where does this person really live? Duh! E911 Or should I point out the years I've been hammering nine counties to get their act together so they can receive E911 from the really remote areas of their jurisdiction? Enhanced what, says the law? E911 costs us more money to implement. Or are too many demands being made on our industry to provide the services we're being bombarded to do? My company is so rural,  FedEx calls us  sometimes to find out  if they should head  out for a delivery  [in our service area]  that day SS-7 A Qwest guy, along with an outsourcer somewhere, says our SS-7 physical circuit has been OC3 tested to our end office, as it's Qwest fiber all the way. So they want to send us a bill for it's use. Chuck says it's interesting. The fiber has a meet-point in a water-filled vault. Down in the hole our fiber is spliced to the Qwest fiber. We guarantee the SS-7 was not tested beyond the last Qwest manned office. (Traffic is working through it). Nor has it been turned up so we can see it. No, says outsource, my paper says that step was done. Now Beehive has to test from the manhole to our first appearance of the circuit on that route. “Idiots all,” mumbles Chuck as he rebuts outsourcer's impossible mission objective. Eventually a Qwest guy agrees. It's not tested beyond his Magna office. We lay the odds: in another week or three, we'll be asked to test that next step as that SS-7 creeps into our turf. MAGNETIC TAPES Dan Jacobson and Dan Foley of SBC Nevada Bell complained about my picking on SBC. Asked me to lay off. But John thinks SBC got even. I said no, why would he say that? John said he received a magnetic tape he gets monthly from SBC. Unreadable. I'm sure it was accidentally wiped in shipment. That's my story anyway. And, there is no connection to the fact that their third attempt at sending us a functional secret decoder ring (to receive files by IP) has gone awry, too. It was sent to an office 100 miles away we haven't used for billing — for years. © Beehive Telephone Co.