Richard: They come from 2 sources (well ultimately 1, but anyways)
1. Big Telcos (like Bell), CLECs (us), or independents (ie, rural telco's in the USA) that assign a block of numbers to be sold on exchanges like this. Generally speaking these types of companies have large inventories of DIDs sitting dormant that they get a relatively little or no cost. So some of these DIDs make it on to the exchange. The big Canadian telcos haven't seemed to embrace the concept yet, but some of the big guys in the US have (Embarq, Qwest, Level3) 2. Resellers. Companies that buy PRIs from the companies above. They buy extra DIDs that they allocate to exchanges in order to either a) offset their own costs or b) derive a profit. Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard (Rogers @ work) To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 11:12 AM Subject: [on-asterisk] buying/selling DIDs There companies 'selling' and 'buying' DIDs from companies like DIDX. I understand some end users and compamies who are interested in buying them for one reason or another for a givem setup fee and a monthly charge with or without free mins. But I do not understand how the DID number becomes available in the first place. Do they come from big providers like Bell say for Toronto? Since those DIDs all has a monthly charge, they are being leased rather then sold ! However, DIDX and other providers refer these transactions as selling and buying which does not seem to make sense to me. Richard
