Don’t panic! You’ve prepared for this. It’s time to put your predetermined plan into action.

A good disaster recovery plan is only as strong as its design. When that design is well thought out
and methodically tested, mitigating disasters becomes the easiest part of an outage.

Implementing your disaster recovery plan is as easy as identifying the offending carrier and choosing
the pre-determined routing plan appropriate for the situation. The more carriers you have, the more disaster recovery routing plans you will want to develop to cover each scenario.

Once you have removed the dark carrier from the routing, you will want to make a few test calls. After confirming that everything is operational, it’s back to business as usual. When you have identified that your original carrier has regained functionality, it’s time to switch back to your ‘sunny day’ routing.

Really! That’s it. No more juggling calls to every vendor you can think of, no more angry emails from management and customers, and no more lengthy apologies explaining why you just slaughtered your Service Level Agreements. Pat yourself on the back – you just became a hero at your business!

WHAT IS A RESPONSIBLE ORGANIZATION (RESPORG)?

A Responsible Organization (RespOrg) is the entity authorized by the toll-free subscriber to assume the duty of managing and administering the associated records in the 800 Service Management System (SMS/800).

In short, a RespOrg’s responsibilities include:

• Adherence to the Industry Guidelines for Toll-Free Number Administration.
• Work with the Help Desk Administrator to obtain, maintain, and correctly utilize SMS/800 interface capabilities and the Toll-Free number resources allocated to SMS/800 for customer assignment.
• Adherence to agreements established through the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), industry forum process.

GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

The RespOrg is responsible to its Customer for the management of the SMS/800 record. This may include, but is not limited to, coordination with Toll-Free Service Providers and with the Help Desk. The following general responsibilities are necessary for the appropriate management of the SMS/800 record. A RespOrg will: Have just a single Customer for an SMS/800 record. NOTE: For Shared Use Toll-Free or Bundled Services, the Provider of the Shared Use Toll-Free or Bundled Service is treated as the Customer. Inform its Customer of the specific function that it, as a RespOrg, will perform. Inform its Customer of the specific responsibilities the Customer assumes for identifying its requirements to the RespOrg. Inform its Customer of the specific responsibilities the Customer assumes for identifying its requirements to the Toll-Free Service Provider. Build up its own process for its Customer to notify it of changes to an SMS/800 record. Implement, in a timely way, all customer requested changes to the SMS/800 record to support the Customer’s Toll-Free Service. Treat all Customer information as confidential unless otherwise instructed by the Customer. This information is and must be treated as Customer Proprietary Network Information. In any case, all non-proprietary information will be made accessible to all other RespOrgs and Toll-Free Service Providers on an equivalent basis. Non-proprietary information has been identified as: the Toll-Free Number, the RespOrg Identification (RespOrg ID), the status of the Toll-Free Number or Customer Record in SMS/800, and the associated effective date and time of the Customer Record. For multi-carrier routing situations, the Area of Service (AOS) of the Customer Record is considered proprietary but distinguishable by those Toll-Free Service Providers (with SMS/800 access) listed on the Customer Record. If requested by any party, a RespOrg must give the Toll-Free Number status, RespOrg ID, and trouble referral number for any Toll-Free Number listed in SMS/800.

TROUBLE REPORTING RESPONSIBILITIES:

The RespOrg is responsible for accepting, referring, coordinating, and/or resolving all trouble reports related to a Toll-Free Service for which it is identified as the RespOrg in SMS/800. The following general responsibilities are required for legitimate management of Toll-Free Service troubles: Provide the appropriate contact number(s) for Toll-Free Service troubles on a 24-hour-a-day, 7day seven days basis, for accepting Toll-Free Service trouble reports from its Customer or other parties who have identified a potential trouble condition. Give the proper trouble reporting management interface(s) for Customers and the Help Desk. Affirm and, when appropriate, correct the information listed on the SMS/800 record to resolve the trouble. At the point when the trouble is not SMS/800 related, the RespOrg or the customer will allude the trouble to the applicable organization. Advise its Customer and/or the affected Toll-Free Service Provider(s) of the proper status during resolution of the Toll-Free Service trouble and maintain appropriate documentation of the trouble resolution.

MEDIA STIMULATED MASS CALLING (MSMC) EVENTS NOTIFICATION:

At the point when the RespOrg has been informed that a Media Stimulated Mass Calling (MSMC) event is going to occur, they have the responsibility to proactively alert the appropriate Telecommunications Service Providers Network Management Centers of the impending event in agreement with the procedures defined by the ATIS Next Generation Interconnection Interoperability Forum (NGIIF) in the MSMC Notification. The RespOrg is responsible for notifying their Customers (including Resellers) that they have the obligation to inform the RespOrg of any intention to have a MSMC event. The RespOrgs should advise the Resellers that they have to inform their Customers that if they take part in or schedule a MSMC event, they should inform the reseller preceding that event taking place. MSMC event notification shall be given by the RespOrg no less than 10 business days before the event. On the off chance that the 10-day advance notification is impossible, then the RespOrg shall contact potentially impacted network management centers as soon as they end up mindful of the event. Either notification shall be in agreement with NGIIF defined procedures.

TEXTING AND SMART SERVICES (TSS) REGISTRY:

The Texting and Smart Services (TSS) Registry, operated by Somos, Inc., serves as the centralized
and authoritative provisioning and routing database for all multimedia services associated with
Toll-Free Numbers. Businesses that offer text messaging capability on Toll-Free Numbers (called
Service Registrars) can enable and set up routing in the TSS Registry in the interest of their customers.
The TSS Registry confirms that the Toll-Free Number is in Assigned or Working Status (not
unassigned or otherwise inaccessible) and notifies the supplier of voice-based services (known as
the RespOrg) that a request to text-enable the Toll-Free Number has been received. Every RespOrg
has an account in the TSS Registry. Once the TSS Registry account has been accessed, the RespOrg
will be notified every day of any requests to text-enable their Toll-Free Numbers. RespOrgs have
two full business days to accept or deny the request. It is the RespOrg’s duty to act on every single
pending request in a timely manner. Options for automated responses (auto-approval or auto-reject)
are accessible to RespOrgs to reduce the response time. Toll-Free Subscribers may furnish
advance instructions to their RespOrg with respect to authorization of text-enablement. RespOrgs
should only deny requests for legitimate business reasons, such as if the Toll-Free Subscriber has
not given permission to the Service Registrar to text-enable their Toll-Free Number. Once the enablement
request is authorized by the RespOrg, the TSS Registry sends out the routing information to the messaging ecosystem. There are several Routing Database providers connected to the TSS Registry who receive continuous updates of any additions or alterations to Toll-Free Numbers, making activations achievable within minutes. Once a number has been released to the spare pool by a RespOrg, the number will revert to that of non-text enabled.