Telco Data Goes Open Source

It's not a movement; it's an individual. One person is building a website containing the basic information ISPs need in day-to-day operations that the Bells make tough to find.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [April 29, 2004]

By day, Paul Timmins is a networking a security engineer for a small- to mid-sized software company (150 employees). But when he goes home, he enters the mysterious universe of telco language. Isn't that like work too?

No. Not for someone whose hobbies include Ham radio and open source software.

Timmins runs the Telcodata website, which contains data on switches, COs, and rate centers (and much more). "I needed the information one day and found it was there, but it was damned near impossible to get it for free," he explains. He obtained the data, put it in a database—and a friend asked for access to the database.

"The next thing you know, I'm getting 12,000 hits a day," he says.

Much of the information on the site is data used by Telcordia (the former Bellcore), including the Telcordia Routing Administration, which is in charge of naming every switch in every CO in the U.S. The names generally consist of a four letter code for the city, a two letter code for the state, two letters for the location, and three for the switch.

For example, DTRTMIBL refers to the Detroit Michigan Bell office. Someone installing a switch there would call Telcordia, pay a fee, and get their switch name, which might be DTRTMIBLDS1. Timmins says that anyone building a business network can use these codes to determine the location of the nearest switch, from which a T-1 might be provisioned. "So when you're doing T-1 cost quoting, you'd need these to determine the cost. The you can go to the customer, add your markup, and say, 'here you go.'"

Timmins is constantly gathering information and adding it to the site, inspired both by his own curiosity and by readers' requests.

"I'm still trying to work on local calling areas," he says. "They're pretty bizarre. It turns out they can vary by rate plan or phone company." In some states, he explains, it's legally mandated. The local calling area has to cover a certain number of rate centers, or cover a certain number of miles of distance.

He hopes someday to build a list of all dialup ISPs, searchable by local numbers (but he'd have to build the list of local calling areas first). "I've always been a big supporter of small companies and single man operations," he says. "The list would make it easier to find the local ISP. If I'm going to Tennessee for a month, I'd use a local ISP with a real human being."

He does envision earning some money from this hobby eventually. He thinks he could charge $10 per month for a subscription to the latest information he's gathering, but without the 100 percent accuracy guarantee that Telcordia provides.

Telcordia's expensive. The brochure can be viewed in .pdf format here. The Telcordia Routing Database System (RDBS) requires a $354 prepayment which gets you a SecurID card. After that, you pay $4.25 per minute, with a minimum monthly charge of $30.

But Telcordia's exorbitant prices bring Timmins business. For example, someone recently asked for switch abbreviations, complaining that Telcordia charges $800 for them. He now has the data, available in the subscription section, where he currently charges $5 per month.

For the moment, costs are held down thanks to local ISP, data center, and webhost Internet 123, which is based in Southfield, Mich. A prominent thank you note at the top of the site says the ISP donates both hardware and colocation.

Timmins himself is a satisfied former Speakeasy customer, but he's about to move and switched to Comcast cable temporarily. He preferred Speakeasy to Comcast, and is only using Comcast because "there's no time constraints or contract limitations. I can have it shut off tomorrow and move and no one cares. I really hate it with a certain level of anger reserved only for large companies that don't care about the needs of the consumer."

Timmins recommends the .us registry (through GoDaddy, see our article on the company here). "I chose .us because the registry for .us allows you to change nameserver information in about 10 minutes, rather than the usual 12 to 24 hour delay for .com, .net, or .org." He says it's been cheaper for him than a .com, .net, or .org domain would have been.

People find uses for the website that Timmins would never have anticipated. The local activist group that runs the website Resources for Michigan Telephone Users found that a particular GTE switch in Muskegon was not connecting to several CLECs. The group proved there was a problem and got the RBOC to fix it, which is no small feat.

"Because they had the information from my site, they could tell what numbers were on what switches and could find all the numbers that were failing on that switch. Sometimes you have to do the phone company's own work for them, I guess."

Those interested in obtaining specific information that's not on the website can e-mail Timmins at paul at telcodata.us. If he has the information, he'll provide it, and if not, he'll probably be able to tell you where you can find it.

— End