Wholesale: Products & Services

Archived System CR 5464735 Detail

Status History

Project Meetings

September 4, 2002 Email from Bonnie Johnson/Eschelon: Hi Peggy, Thanks for your concern. I do not have a problem closing the CR. I have not been provided with any more examples here at Eschelon. Qwest and I suspected that some change was made at some point for something else that impacted this issue quite some time ago. Just surprised Qwest affiliated the two as they are completely separate issues. Thanks again!

-- September 3, 2002 Email to Bonnie Johnson/Eschelon: Bonnie -- Thank you for your willingness to close out your CR, 5464735, at the next CMP Meeting. Qwest certainly does not want you to agree to close it if you feel that the Eschelon CR has not been completed, in conjunction with another CR or not. I am a bit confused as to why Terry's CR does not impact yours. My understanding from the April Meeting was that the completion of Terry's CR would also meet the need of your CR. If that is not the case, are you willing to close the CR because you feel that it has been completed, just not with Terry's? Does Eschelon no longer need the request? Please clarify for me. Although I would love to have a completed CR, I do not want to close it until it is completed to your satisfaction.

- September 3, 2002 Email from Bonnie Johnson/Eschelon: Hi Peggy, Actually these are two totally different issues and the resolution to Terry's CR does not impact ours, however, I am willing to close our CR at the next CMP meeting.

September 3, 2002 Email sent to Bonnie Johnson/Eschelon: Hi Bonnie -- The CMP Systems CR 5464735 'Eliminate Delay Due To Error Message Indicating CFA In Use, When It Is Not' was being worked in conjunction with a Product and Process CMP CR, 5548229, submitted by Allegiance, as discussed in the April Systems CMP Meeting. The Allegiance CR (5548229) was discussed at the August 21st PnP Meeting and was updated to 'Completed' status. I have attached a copy of each of these CR's for your review. Due to the completion of the PnP CR 5548229, is Eschelon willing to close the CMP Systems CR 5464735? If you are not ready to close the Systems CR (5464735), can you please advise what additional information is needed by Eschelon in order to close your CR?

-- May 16, 2002 Systems CMP Meeting Discussion: Michael Buck/Qwest stated that status was provided yesterday at the Product and Process CMP meeting. The process regarding busy CFA will be communicated. This CR will be up for closure at the June CMP Meeting Received okay to close the Action Item. The CR remains open.

April 18, 2002 CMP Discussion: Peggy Esquibel-Reed/Qwest presented status: Russ Urevig/Qwest is working this CR in conjunction with a Product & Process CR, 5548229 Same Day Pair Change During Test & Turn-Up (Day of Cut). The documentation and communication are due to be completed by COB April 19,2002 and should close out both CR’s. There were no questions. This CR will be up for closure at the May CMP Meeting.

February 21, 2002 - Discussed at CMP: Russ Urevig will work with Chad Gerity to develop internal documentation for proper escalation steps and communicate to Qwest escalation desk personnel.

In response to the action items from 2-18 call: Reusing disconnected CFA on a new connect prior to IAD - When issuing a new connect, the busy CFA edit in IMA can be bypassed by populating the RPON field with the PON of the disconnect order, stating in the remarkls field 'pls reuse CFA,' and requesting manual assistance. It is the request for manual assitance that actually allows the LSR to be processed. This way the busy CFA edit is bypassed and the ISC representative has the opportunity to look at the LSR, acknowledge the association between the new connect and the disconnect, and allow it to be processed even though the CFA is not showing available.

Reusing CFA from a canceled LSR prior to system showing availability - The same process can be used when issuing a new connect LSR that follows the cancelation of an LSR with the same CFA. The new connect order wil be accepted if the RPON field is populated with the PON of the cancelled LSR, the Remarks field is populated with 'pls reuse CFA,' and requesting manual assistance field is selected.

February 18, 2002 Meeting to Discuss Investigation Results of Submitted Examples Attendees: Kathy Stichter, Bonnie Johnson/Eschelon. Terry Wicks/Allegiance. Chad Gerity, Russ Urevig, Ken Olson, Lynn Stecklein/Qwest The purpose of this meeting was to address 3 questions with Allegiance and Eschelon: Why wouldn’t IMA show the CFA’s available for re-use, how long does it take for Qwest’s systems to update after disconnect due date, and if this a manual process. Chad provided an overview of the process associated with TIRKS receiving the order from the SOP and when the design of the order begins: According to normal procedures, TIRKS receives service orders from the SOPS and begins the design of the circuit according the information provided on the order. This is appropriately called the design phase. Once the circuit is designed, the specifications are distributed to WFA-C where the actual physical wiring of the circuit occurs. Depending on how much of the design or the wiring of the circuit has been completed will determine the time in which it will again become available in the TIRKS system. When a request to cancel an order is received in TIRKS, the request will be distributed to the appropriate departments. A circuit will not show available until after TIRKS receives a 'Cancellation Complete' notice.

Typically, if TIRKS receives a cancellation during the design phase, the appropriate people cancel the design of the circuit in the system. Once the design is canceled and the 'Cancellation Complete' notice is received the CFA will show available. This generally takes one full business day. So if the CLEC does not cancel the LSR until the service orders have been distributed to TIRKS for design , then it will be one full business day before the CFA shows available again.

If TIRKS receives the cancellation request after the order has been distributed to WFA-C for wiring, the request to cancel must be distributed to WFA-C. The WFA-C personnel will then begin to 'un-wire' the CFA. Once WFA-C has completely taken out the wiring, a cancellation completion notification is sent to TIRKS. TIRKS then shows the CFA available. This process normally takes 5 business days after WFA-C receives the cancellation request. Therefore, if a CLEC issues a request to cancel an LSR after the physical wiring of the circuit has begun, it will be 5 business days before the CLEC can issue a new LSR requesting the CFA that was part of the formerly canceled LSR.

The processing of a disconnect follows a similar set of events. TIRKS receives a disconnect and posts an 'Inventory Availability Date,' (this is the date the CFA will be available to the CLEC again) which is 5 business days after the disconnect arrives in the TIRKS system. The request is then sent on to WFA-C. Upon receiving the disconnect, WFA-C will disable the circuit, but will not completely disconnect it. The reason for this is to make sure a cancellation of the disconnect is not received. TIRKS waits until the disconnect is posted complete and notifies WFA-C to completely disconnect the circuit. If the CLEC issues a new connect requesting CFA that is being disconnected on another order it will be rejected, unless the new connect is submitted 5 business days after the disconnect. The CLECs do have the option to issue a new connect at the same time the disconnect order is issued provided that:

1) The disconnect order is related to the new connect order. If this is done, then the CFA will be available for re-use.

2) A disconnect can be related to a new Connect by mentioning in the RPON field the new connect order number and by populating the Remarks field on the disconnect order with the comment "Re-use CFA".

3) The new connect order can not have the same due date as the disconnect order (If a CLEC issues a disconnect order on 01-01-2002 then the new connect should be dated on or after 01-02-2002).

IMA verified that in the case of the three disconnect PONs (708700-D4, 708700-D6, and 708700-D7) Allegiance did not populated the RPON and the Remarks field for CFA re-use. Therefore the new connect LSRs were rejected due to busy CFA.

Bonnie - Eschelon wanted to know when in the process does the order reach Tirks. Chad said the service order has been created.

Chad said that once a circuit is designed, the specs are sent to WFA-C where the actual wiring of the circuit occurs. Depending how much of the circuit is designed is the key as to when the CFA will again become available. A circuit will not show available until after TIRKS receives a 'Cancellation Complete' notice. If cancellation is received during design - CFA should be available in one business day If cancellation is received after the order has been distributed to WFA-C for wiring - CFA should be available in 5 days.

Terry - Allegiance brought up a concern regarding a Pseudo CLEC test (Exception 2079) It took 4 to 33 days for the CFA to show available. Russ will investigate test example and provide an answer to Peggy.

Bonnie - Eschelon wanted to know if they were using the wrong terminology associated with Disconnects. She also asked if there was a documented process. Chad indicated that the CLECs do have the option to issue a new connect at the same the disconnect order is issued. The disconnect needs to be related to the new connect by populating the RPON field and the remarks with re-use CFA.

Russ recommended that Qwest do a true-up and validate if this process is working the way it should be. Is the CFA really available. Russ and Chad will complete investigation and report findings to Peggy

Russ and Chad will provide an update in the Systems CMP meeting.

01/17/02 CMP Meeting Discussion: Jonathan Spangler/AT&T does not want this CR closed. He needs to check into. Jeff Thompson/Qwest responded that if examples can be provided by a week from Friday, Qwest can make a decision if the CR needs to go into Withdrawn status or goes into definition phase. Leilani Hines/WorldCom stated that the busy CFA project may have done something to fix this problem. Jeff Thompson/Qwest stated that there was no systems work done to fix this CR. The CR will be updated to 'Pending Withdrawal'. If Qwest gets examples by January 25, the CR will go into definition. If no examples are received by January 25, the CR status will be updated to 'Withdrawn'.

11-16-01 Alignment Meeting Notes Attendees: Attendees: Kathy Stichter/Eschelon, Bonnie Johnson/Eschelon, Kathy Rein/Qwest, J. J. Bradley/Qwest, Max Pitard/Qwest, Janet Carlson/Qwest, Gerald Mohatt/Qwest, Dallas Morris/Qwest, Chad Gerity/Qwest, Peggy Esquibel-Reed/Qwest, Monica Manning/Qwest, Russ Urevig/Qwest, Carrie Lousberg/Qwest Reviewed CR description and confirmed is an impact for IMA Common for Unbundled Loop only. CLEC Expectation: When a PON is submitted and the order is rejected for any reason, when the PON is re-submitted IMA responds with an error message that the CFA is in use. The CFA is not in use because the order was rejected. An escalation then needs to be called in to clear it. Eschelon is asking Qwest that if IMA rejects an order to allow the CFA to be unreserved in TIRKS so that the CLEC can resubmit under the same PON., or Qwest can look at the edits giving the CFA in use error to see if they can be modified.

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11-26-01 - E-mail sent to Eschelon requesting additional information:

1. What are the LSR and PON numbers of the orders that were rejected? 2. What are the LSR and PON numbers of the orders that were resubmitted with the same CFA? 3. We need a step by step recap of exactly what happened. Is there some type of incident or trouble ticket report that Eschelon had to complete that would give us this recap? If not, we need to get detailed steps of exactly what they did prior to, and immediately after receiving the error message. 4. We need numbers/statistics around how often this happens.

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11/30/01 E-Mail Received from Bonnie Johnson (Eschelon):

Email received from Bonnie Johnson (Eschelon): Eschelon's provisioner has indicated she had an order she had to cancel on 11/28. She then submitted another LSR using the same CFA on 11/29 and she did not receive an error. Is there a possibility that there has been something that happened in one of the point releases that would have corrected or changed this recently.

In addition, she did not save the escalation ticket data on those she had. I asked all provisioners to keep me informed on their experience with this. If you are unable to move forward we may have to wait until we can recreate the situation ourselves.

CenturyLink Response

This letter is in response to your recent request regarding the Escalation process associated with busy CFA. A subsequent request was made to include information to the CLECs regarding how they should initiate an escalation for busy CFA.

Below is the information that is necessary to initiate an Escalation for busy CFA.

Busy Connecting Facility Assignment (CFA) is defined as; When validating the CFA the slot shows that it is currently in use by a circuit in the Trunk Integrated Record Keeping System (TIRKS). The busy CFA can be the result of several different reasons: normal activity, pending service order activity, pending Inventory Availability Date (IAD) issues, and canceled service orders that have not cleared in TIRKS. Should you receive an indicator that the CFA is currently in use, however you records indicate the CFA is NOT in use, an Escalation ticket may be opened.

Information that is required for an Escalation ticket will be for BUSY CFA problems.

1. TERM Z, TYPE LONG CLLI (ex.ALBONMNEHG1)

2. TERM A, TYPE SHORT TYPE CLLI (e.g., ALBQNMNE)

3. CABLE TYPE (e.g., alt01)

4. UNIT NUMBER (e.g., 086)

5. Was there a disconnect request submitted to free CFA location. (EX. Yes, a disconnect request was submitted and an FOC was received. The PON number for the isconnect was AAA121211-MA)

6. Was the Slot changed during installation? If so what was the old slot and what should the current slot be? (EX. Yes, we changed the CFA during test and turn-up the previous CFA was ALT01 slot 89 TCANAZMAHG1 and slot changed to slot 91. The PON number associated to this change was AAA121211-MA)

7. Was there any migration activity on this CFA? (EX. Yes, we should that a migration to another Provider on 06/17/2002)

8. Want type of request were you attempting when you encounter the busy CFA problem? (EX. We were attempting to request a new loop and utilize this CFA, or we were attempting a change activity against circuit 99.LXFU.000111.nw.)

9. Were there any change activity against the circuit, if so PON number for activities. (EX. Our records show a change activity should have taken place on 06/17/2002 from PON AAA121211-MA to free this CFA. Or our records indicate a disconnect request on 06/17/2002 on PON AAA121211-MA which should have freed the CFA.)

If you have any questions regarding this information please feel free to contact me.

Russ Urevig Senior Process Analyst

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DRAFT RESPONSE For Review by the CLEC Community and Discussion at December CMP Meeting

November 26, 2001

Kathleen Stichter ILEC Relations Manager Eschelon Telecom Inc.

CC: Bonnie Johnson, Eschelon Chad Gerity, Qwest Russ Urevig, Qwest Carrie Lousberg, Qwest This letter is in response to your CLEC Change Request Form, number 5464735 dated March 26, 2001 - CR Title: Eliminate delay due to error message indicating CFA in use, when it is not.

CR Description: When CLEC submits a loop order to Qwest, the order is rejected for any reason, and CLEC re-submits the order, IMA responds with an error message indicating that the CFA is already in use. The CFA, however, is not in use, because the order was rejected (for reasons that may be unrelated to the CFA). At this time, CLEC then must call escalations to clear this, which results in a 2 to 3 day delay. Only after the issue is cleared up may the CLEC re-submit the order (and only then does the interval begin). Without this delay, the order could be corrected and re-submitted on the same day, which would not extend the interval. Qwest should change the system so that it allows the CLEC to use the CFA in this situation. Alternatively, if that is not possible, Qwest should allow CLEC to use the same request (the rejected request) with an increment (such as 1 or a) to avoid the delay that is currently associated with the escalation process and clearing the CFA.

Qwest Response: Based on the above noted information, the level of effort for this request is large. This CR was on the vote list for 10.0. A User Request was written on November 21, 2001.

Qwest needs additional information from Eschelon in order to continue and not jeopardize this CR for 10.0. Qwest is unable to recreate the error message that Eschelon is receiving. Information needed is: 1. What are the LSR and PON numbers of the orders that were rejected? 2. What are the LSR and PON numbers of the orders that were resubmitted with the same CFA? 3. We need a step by step recap of exactly what happened. Is there some type of incident or trouble ticket report that Eschelon had to complete that would give us this recap? If not, we need to get detailed steps of exactly what they did prior to, and immediately after receiving the error message. 4. We need numbers/statistics around how often this happens.

Sincerely, John Gallegos Information Technologies Manager