crtc.gc.cacrtc.gc.ca/public/cisc/bp/BPRE077c.docx · Web viewSince the original BLIF and CLIF Guidelines were issued by the Operator Services / Directory Listings CISC Sub Working

File ID: BPRE077c.docx

_________________________________________________________________

IMPLEMENTATION OF LOCAL COMPETITION

CRTC INDUSTRY STEERING COMMITTEE

REPORT to the CRTC

by

INDUSTRY WORKING GROUP

Business Process

Consensus Report ________________________________________________________________

TITLE: Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Agreement (Version 2.0)

________________________________________________________________

DATE: November 15, 2012

________________________________________________________________

document.docx Page 1 of 33

IMPLEMENTATION OF LOCAL COMPETITIONConsensus Report to the CRTC

Task ID(s): BPTF0077

Task Name(s): Review of BLIF & CLIF Industry Documentation

Task Description(s): Review and revise all directory listing guidelines and model agreements to ensure industry documentation is current and reflective of the requirements of the current telecom competitive landscape. The documents to be reviewed are:

BLGLBLIF20 (DORE014L) Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Service Description and Ordering Guidelines

BPGLCLIF20 (DORE015E) Complex Listing Interchange Form (CLIF) Service Description and Ordering Guidelines

BPAGBLIF20 (DORE020A) Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Agreement

Background:Since the original BLIF and CLIF Guidelines were issued by the Operator Services / Directory Listings CISC Sub Working Group (DOSWG) in 1998, the business of publishing telephone listings has changed. There are more types of businesses that require access to listing information. ILECs, for the most part, now contract out the publishing and distribution of printed telephone directories and electronic (online) directories are now widely available via the Internet.

In reviewing the processes for the provision of Basic and Complex listings, the BPWG has focused on addressing the concerns that were raised by participants, as well as ensuring the documentation more accurately reflect the current directory publishing environment.

Upon completing updates to the BLIF and CLIF Guidelines the work group reviewed the Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Agreement to ensure that it also reflected current and appropriate use of Directory Listing information.

As a part of this review, it was noted that Bell Canada has been using a CRTC approved version of the BLIF Agreement, which includes some clarification of terms and also provides recourse to a LEC in situations where the purchaser of listing information repeatedly breaches the contract terms & conditions. It was agreed that these changes should be incorporated into a new version of the BLIF Agreement Template

Conclusions : Version 2 of the BLIF Agreement (BPAGBLIF20) has been updated to align with current directory publishing practices.

The CISC BPWG has been identified as the group that is now responsible for maintaining and updating the template agreement.

The definition of Directory Assistance has been expanded. The meaning of ‘Services’ has been clarified based on the service provider types. The definition of Telephone Directories has been expanded to address current

processes.


The termination rights were expanded to address repeated breach of contract. Agreement was updated to allow execution by electronic means. Wording to allow assignment of the agreement to an affiliate was added to

section 17 Clarification of the requirement to provide notice of delayed performance was

added to Section 18.

Recommendations:The BPWG recommends that the Steering Committee (SC) adopt this report and that the Commission approve the new version of the Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Agreement (BPAGBLIF20).

Further Activities: Upon approval of Report BPRE077c, review of the BLIF and CLIF industry documentation will be complete, and BPTF0077 will be closed.

Participation : Anne MacMillan – DistributelAnne Gertzbein – MTS AllstreamBrad Fraser – EastLinkCathy Macknak – SaskTelDarlene Best – Bell CanadaDennis Joudrey – Bell CanadaDiane Dolan – DistributelKim Marquis – Bell AliantKrysia Veneta – YPGKristy Reyner – ShawLisa Lamontagne – YPGMartin Perreault – VidéotronMelanie Cardin – VidéotronMichelle Dupuis – TELUSNoelle McKinley – TELUSOkacha Merabet – CRTCPeter Lang – BPWG ChairGerry Thompson – RogersSam Glazer – Bell CanadaTracey Kenning – MTS Allstream

Attachments: Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Agreement

BPTF0077


IMPLEMENTATION OF LOCAL COMPETITIONTASK IDENTIFICATION FORM

Date Originated: July 18, 2009 Date Revised: November 15, 2012

Document #: BPTF0077.docxSUB-GROUP: Business Process

TASK #: BPTF0077

TASK TITLE: Review of BLIF & CLIF Industry Documentation

TASK DESCRIPTION: Review and revise all directory listing guidelines and model agreements to ensure industry documentation is current and reflective of the requirements of the current telecom competitive landscape. The documents to be reviewed are:

DORE014L Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Service Description and Ordering Guidelines

DORE015E Complex Listing Interchange Form (CLIF) Service Description and Ordering Guidelines

DORE020A Basic Listing Interchange File (BLIF) Agreement

PRIORITY: Medium DUE DATE: TBD

CROSS-IMPACTS: BPTF0076

WORKPLAN AND TIME-FRAMES:

by May 18, 2010 : - Initial review of issues raised in contributionsby July 21 /22 meeting : - Walkthrough of BLIF & CLIF Documents

CURRENT STATUS: In Progress

TASK ORIGINATOR:Cathy Macknak Tel: (306) 777-5387 SaskTel Fax: (306) 359- 00762121 Saskatchewan Drive, 10th FlrRegina, SaskatchewnS4P 3Y2 E-Mail: [email protected]

TASK TEAM:BPWG Team Members

ACTIVITY DIARY:Serial Date Activity

1 July 21, 2009 TIF Created.2 August 25, 2009 Cindy presented the TIF, no changes were required.


mailto:[email protected]

Serial Date ActivitySam presented Bell Canada’s contribution BPCO107c BLIF Guidelines Update which proposed enhancements for handling of BLIF error situations, specifically for large file processing and policy reasons. As Bell will be upgrading their OSS systems to support the changes, Sam requested an expedited review of the contributionby all LEC’s and feedback as soon as possible.

Sam proposed that the changes submitted in the contribution should not require LEC’s to upgrade their systems unless the LEC chooses to utilize the new information provided. However, all LEC’s would need to socialize the proposal internally within their respective organizations to confirm this.

Cindy agreed with the new proposed detail for Policy Reason errors as this is an issue today at Shaw that results in reduced productivity.

Peter questioned what Bell’s implementation timeframe was and if any specific volume thresholds were set. Sam indicated the current plan is to complete the system changes by the end of 2009 and that batch volume thresholds varied as they are dependant on daily volumes submitted by all Carriers.

Pascale expressed concern that the Bell contribution may result in misalignment of BLIF processes and standards in the industry.

Peter requested all LECs to review the Bell contribution and provide responses by September 11th, 2009. If a LEC supports the proposal, advise by email notification to Peter Lang. If the proposal cannot be supported, LEC’s are to identify their concerns or suggested alternatives in the form of a contribution.

3 September 17, 2009 Cindy reviewed the TIF, no changes were required.

Sam reviewed responses to Bell’s contribution BPCO107c.

The feedback generally indicated that the changes proposed by Bell would not impact current file processing. However, in order to utlize the new information that would be provided , most LEC’s would require some level of system changes.

Sam advised that given the feedback has indicated that there should not be any impacts to BLIF file processing, Bell would like to proceed with the implementation, proposing a November 13th test date. This is pending Telus’s response to Bell’s contribution which will be submitted to Sam by September 18th.

Tracey raised concerns with respect to Bell’s proposal to provide a rejection for exceeding file size. She questioned if this would limit Bell’s ability to change file size thresholds if this were proposed in the future. Bell confirmed the rejection code is a notification that would be generated when the size of a BLIF file submitted by a LEC exceeds the file size threshold set in Bell’s system. If any changes to file size are proposed, the file size rejection code could still be generated, the file size threshold itself would need to be tuned.

All BPWG members were asked to submit contributions identifying proposed changes to the BLIF and CLIF Guidelines and Agreement


Serial Date Activityby Oct 6th. 2009, for review at the October Face to Face BPWG Meeting.

4 October 15, 2009 Cindy reviewed the TIF, no changes were required.

Pascale reviewed contribution BPCO107d.

Cindy reviewed contribution BPCO107e.

The two contributions identified issues and /or recommended solutions related to BLIF/CLIF Industry Guideline deficiences and gaps. Some of the items put forward are as follows:

Online 411 and Directory listing accuracy and delays. Current processes do not provide visibility that a service

provider port is triggering the add/delete transactions. Insufficient volume theshold limits, Use of outdated communication protocols for CLIF

confirmations. Data inconsistencies and standardization challenges. Delays to updating 411 for CLIF records. Use of Advance Notification field to manage congestion prior

to book close. Addition of audit or validation process for LEC’s.

Parties agreed the approach for the TIF will be to develop a three pronged approach to any BLIF/CLIF changes recommended. The approach will be as follows:

Develop a short term plan to address BLIF/CLIF deficiencies with minimal system impacts

Develop a long term plan to address BLIF/CLIF deficiencies that will likely include more complex system changes.

Develop a plan to address data inaccuracies and delays with online 411 and directory databases that include notification to consumers that online 411 and directories are not regulated.

All BPWG members were asked to submit contributions identifying proposed changes to the BLIF and CLIF Guidelines and Agreement by November 12th. 2009, for review at the November BPWG Meeting.

5 November 19, 2009 Cindy reviewed the TIF, no changes were required.

Peter reviewed Rogers contribution BPCO107F.

Rogers contribution generally agreed with previous contributions submitted by Shaw and Videotron. However, additional comments were submitted on the Customer Transfer process, volumes, record validation and delete activity.

Rogers also recommended implementing an independent third party clearing house for BLIF/CLIF processing as it could provide a number of efficiencies for the industry.

Sam provided some preliminary feedback on Rogers contribution that will be communicated in the form of a contribution at a later date.


Serial Date ActivityCindy advised that Shaw supported the notion of a Clearinghouse solution to address the challenges faced by national LEC’s.

Other BPWG members were awaiting feedback from their organizations before comments could be provided.

Cindy indicated next steps will be to determine which issues raised can be addressed as part of the short term plan with minimal or little system impacts. Noelle commented that a decision on the Clearinghouse option would also need to be made as this could impact the level of system changes that industry members would be willing to implement if a Clearinghouse solution was agreed to.

All BPWG members were asked to submit comments in the form of contributions by January 6th 2010, for review at the January 2010 BPWG Meeting.

6 January 21, 2010 Cindy reviewed the TIF updates, no changes were required.

Cathy from SaskTel reviewed Contribution BPCO107g.

Some of the issues raised by SaskTel were:

Retain and unlock transactions proposed would increase complexity of BLIF process if agreed to.

Increased risk to listing errors if the process is updated with a single transaction for change orders as this may reduce validation.

The addition of Service Provider SPID information for inclusion in the unlock and retain transactions (per Shaws contribution) may contravene non-disclosure and confidentiality rules.

Agreed with recommendations to standardize data requirements nationally.

Expressed concern that the implementation of a Clearinghouse solution would result in economical impacts to SaskTel if it was a mandatory requirement.

Concern that LEC’s are sending BLIF records before a port has completed.

Recommended new Listing Level Error Code to identify when a duplicate listing exists under a different SPID.

Peter commented on SaskTel’s contribution. He requested further clarification on Sasktel’s confidentiality concern as he did not view this as contravening the MALI schedule on confidentiality and non disclosure. SaskTel suggested that it was their view this would result as the changes proposed would result in the proposed SPID information being visible in their internal orders used for the BLIF process. Cindy also commented that it was not her view this information would contravene confidentiality rules as the MALI indicates information can be shared on a need to know basis. Further, values that should have limited visibility in order systems can be blocked with system configuration.

Peter also commented on SaskTel’s concerns with the proposal to implement a single Change transaction, He agreed in principal with


Serial Date ActivitySaskTel that there is a need to maintain validation on change orders to reduce the risk to end customer listings, however the current process is excessive and results in high levels of rework. Cindy also agreed, suggesting that we need to identify an optimal level of validation which balances efficiency and risk for the change process.

Cindy commented on SaskTel’s concern with the unlock/retain transaction proposal. She advised that the intent of the Shaw recommendation to implement retain and unlock transactions was to improve visibilty of porting activity to Publishers as the current process does not do so and causes issues when transactions are late or missing. She indicated that a change of some type is required to provide this visibility to the publishers without increasing complexity.

Lastly, Cindy addressed SaskTel’s concern with LEC’s submitting BLIF records prior to port completion. She indicated Shaw schedules their BLIF records for processing on due date. Tracey noted that her concern with this is that if a port is postponed or cancelled on due date the BLIF records will have been generated. Cindy indicated that the guidelines indicate the listings are to be sent when the customers service is operational and believes as a general rule Shaw’s process is complying with the exception of port delays or cancels. She indicated that the BLIF guidelines do not explicitly state that validation in NPAC is required. Peter suggested this is an area where additional detail may be required in the Guidelines.

Pascale from Videotron reviewed Contribution BPCO107h. Videotron highlighted additional items for consideration primarily related to the CLIF process.

Some of the issues identified were: Replace the manual process for exchanging CLIF

information with AS2 . Revise BLIF Guidelines to include Toll Free #’s and email

as BLIF listing types. Standardize exchange names Consistency with processing of the french character set

Sam commented on Videotron’s contribution. He suggested that the challenges experienced by Videotron of consistent acceptance of the french character set in listings, may be a technical problem. He offered to take the item off line to investigate.

Sam also suggested that the recommendation by Videotron to implement AS2 for CLIF would be a significant initiative, with a large investment as it would require development of a standard layout in addition to setup of AS2.

Cindy polled the group as to whether additional contributions will be forthcoming. Telus advised they plan to submit a contribution by Feb 10, 2010, for review at the February 17th meeting.

Cindy suggested that once all contributions have been reviewed, she will compile a list of the issues raised, cross referenced to contributions and to the applicable BLIF/CLIF Guideline. The view is


Serial Date Activitythis will assist BPWG members with tracking all issues identified by the parties and provide a view of the common themes presented Further, after discussing next steps, members agreed that the best approach for developing the short and long term plans for updating the current guidelines, would be to begin with a detailed walkthrough of the BLIF and CLIF guidelines, with an eye to improving level of detail and bringing the information to a current state. This activity will be undertaken at the April 20/21 face to face meeting in Halifax.

7 March 17, 2010 New TIF Owner assigned8 April 22, 2010 TIF changes were approved with minor updates

The workplan and schedule were revisited and participants discussued next steps. Tracey Kenning noted that any system changes would not happen soon, as BLIF and CLIF was not a priority for MTS Allstream. Sam Glazer indicated the same was true at Bell Canada.

There was some general discussion around the changing market for printed directories and the trending toward on-line listing information as some of the changes that have occurred since the BLIF & CLIF processes were first developed.

Two milestones were added to the schedule: A review of the issues presented in the various contributions

will take place on the May 18th call. The objective of this review will be to determine which issues can be addressed in the short-term, which ones would take longer to resolve, and which ones should be taken off the table completely

A walk through of the BLIF & CLIF Guidelines will take place at the F2F meeting in Ottawa in July. There was a specific request to have TIF77 scheduled for Wednesday, July 21st..

9 May 27, 2010 TIF was reviewed and approved with minor corrections

Participants reviewed and updated items 1 to 25 of the BLIF & CLIF Issues document to determine which issues are likely to require system changes, and which issues can be addressed by updating the documentation or procedures only. The remaining issues will be reviewed at the June meeting

In further discussions it was agreed that the current BLIF/CLIF guidelines need to have timelines added to them.

10 June 13, 2010 TIF was reviewed and approved with changes.

It was noted that the TELUS contribution will be issued by July 2 for review at the face to face meeting in Ottawa

Items #26 to #41 of the BLIF & CLIF Issues document were reviewed by the group.

#29, we need to understand the ILEC’s current rules for ‘data matching’ in order to determine if system changes would be required to address this concern. All ILECs are to investigate and report back at the July 21/22 meeting.


Serial Date Activity#31, 32,& 33 were removed from the list, as they were not issues with the existing processes.

#38 May have been a discrepancy between the printed (ILEC) Directory and an on-line (3rd Party) listing service. As a BLIF listing must proceed the CLIF listing, there was uncertainty as to how this could have happened.

#39 There are many instances of the same abbreviation being used for different exchanges. A great deal of work would be involved in changing abbreviations to ensure that each one is unique across the country. It was identified that the CRTC has a list of all exchanges across Canada. Pascale will provide a copy of the list for distribution to BPWG participants

#40 It was noted that there are Business Issues around adding these types of listings to BLIF as these are currently chargeable items.

#41 There was some discussion around the experience of implementing a French Character Set with Syniverse and the need to identify which character set would be required. Further discussion required.

During the review it was noted that printed Directories are no longer being mass distributed in 7 major centers across Canada. Per Sam, Bell customers can request a directory. CLECs will need to investigate the impact of these changes and the options available to their customers.

Cathy will update the BLIF & CLIF Issues document for reference when we review of the guidelines at the July 21 /22 meeting.

11 July 21, 2010 TIF updates were approved and Action Items reviewed.

Per Action Item #6 – ILECs were to identify the data that must be an ‘exact match’ before a delete record is processed. Additional information is required from TELUS and MTS Allstream.

Sam Glazer noted that residential listings are more straight forward than business, as business numbers can be listed multiple times so removal of a BLIF listing could negatively impact a CLIF listing. In considering relaxing the number of matched fields for deletions, the BPWG might want to differentiate between residential and business customers (e.g.) Use SPID and TN for residential, but include customer name for business

Tracey Kenning noted that MTS Allstream supports a standardized method for exchanging CLIF files.

It was suggested that we invite representatives from the Directory Publishers to participate in our Sept meeting. Sam Glazer will contact Yellow Pages Group. Cathy Macknak will contact Direct West.

Participants reviewed pages 1 – 15 of the BLIF Guidelines


Serial Date Activity(DORE014L) and the following questions were raised:

File Header Record Is the ERROR CODE field zero-filled on input files? What happens if the wrong FILE TYPE is used? Are there

edits to verify the file type based on the number of records it contains?

Do the CONTACT & COMMENTS fields in the header record provide any value?

Exchange Header Is the ERROR CODE field zero filed on input files? Could the 2 digit Province code be added to the

EXCHANGE name abbreviation to address duplicate exchange names?

Listing Record Is the ERROR CODE field zero-filled on input files? Need to understand the verification rules for processing of

Out /In ACTION INDICATORS. Need clarification on handling of prefixes on SORT WORDS.

An additional call is scheduled for Aug 16 (11:00 am to 12:30 pm ET) to continue review of the guidelines.

12 August 16, 2010 TIF updates were approved and Action Items reviewed.

Review of the BLIF Guidelines continued from page 16 (Subsequent word) to the end of page 25.

Listing Record Updated to address Privacy and Security for all customers

(regardless of gender). Customers can choose to list Initials rather than full names and titles of address can be omitted.

Is Use of a Brand Name validated? By whom? Placement word - need clarification for situation c) ‘where a

prefix is treated as a word”. Maybe an example could be added.

When customers provide postal codes are they validated by anyone? Are postal codes included in listings & published in directories?

Require clarifcation on how listings with a G (Government) indicator are classified.

Discussion with Directory Publishers is required to understand the Advance Notification process

BLIF Field Matrix & NotesCathy will add a Field Position column to the field matrix

Note b) can we remove last sentence Note d) inserted word ‘required’ Note e) think this can be removed as it is fully explained in

the Field Definitions Note f) The Field Definition could be expanded, or a more

detailed process documented elsewhere in the guidelines Note g) Indicated that not all LECs will send Nil files Note i, j & k) Need clarification on how Fields are filled and

padded


Serial Date Activity Note l) Changed title to Date & Time Range Format to match

the definition Note m) New note to indicate that the end date & time of

range cannot exceed file creation date & time. Note o) Need to identify the end of line character for clarity.

Review of the guidelines will continue at the Sept meeeting in Montreal. Representatives from Yellow Pages Group and Direct West will be in attendance to provide clarification on publishing rules and processes.

13 September 13, 2010 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the Action Items.

Representatives from the ILEC Directory Publishers - Yellow Pages Group (YPG) and Direct West participated in the Sept 13 discussion.

The BLIF Guidelines have been renamed from DORE014L to BPGLBLIF10 and the CLIF Guidelines have been renamed from DORE015E to BPGLCLIF10.

Action Item #6 – TELUS provided an update on Business Listings for BC /AB, still need info for TELUS Quebec. MTS Allstream had not been able to get a response on validation fields from YPG. YPG will follow up after the meeting.Note: TIF Owner has moved information on Validation Fields from Serial 11 to Action Item #6 to avoid further updates to TIF history.

Participants reviewed the marked up version on the BLIF Guidelines with the Directory Publishers, who provided clarification on several of the items.

Error Codes – Per Direct West, these should be Zero Filled on the initial file. Other LECs should check if they also Zero Fill.

Clarification of residential names with Prefixes is still required. Date Ranges – Are Gaps allowed between the end date of one

update file and the start date of the next?o Bell does not allow gapso Direct West (SaskTel) does not send gaps, but will

accept /allow them on incoming files.o Other LECs should determine if they allow gaps

Is File type validated on incoming files?o File Type is not typically validated, but per Direct West, if

a file exceeds a certain number of records they would considered it a Master File

Duplicate Exchange Names across Canadao Province Code could be added to the recordo Direct West uses the NPA-NXX, not the Exchange

Name, to determine which directory to publish the number in.

o The exact issue with the Duplicate Exchanges could not be recalled - futher discussion required.

Postal Codeo Direct West adds postal codes to the published

directories.


Serial Date Activityo YPG does not publish postal codes, but may use postal

codes that are provided for other purposes. Advance Notification

o A separate section will be added to explain the AN process.

Policy Reason Codeo The new code will be added to Field Matrix and Field

Descriptions EBCDIC Values

o We still require information on the appropriate EBCIDIC values.

A special meeting was set up for Oct 6, 2010 (2:00 – 4:00 ET)Review of the guidelines will continue with Data Interchange Specifications.

14 October 6, 2010 TIF updates were approved and Action Items reviewed.

Review of the BLIF Guidelines continued.

ScopeWording still needs to be updated to reflect that LECs that provide Directory Assistance service need to purchase listings, and to clarifiy the ILEC obligation to publish a complete directory.

Advance NotificationParticipants discussed the AN process, and it was noted that Direct West does not accept Advance Notifications. Chris Peters described a problem with the AN process in a porting situation. EastLink systems do not support the AN process. However, if the Old SP uses the AN process to delete a listing for a port that will complete after the book is closed, the customer’s listing will not appear in the new Print Directory. YPG agreed to review how they handle ANs for deletes in these situations. For a regular port, YPG handles a delete/add as a SPID change, but this does not occur with Advance Notifications as not all SPs support the AN process.

Placement WordDirect West indicated that it does not use the Placement Word, but relies on the Sort Word and its publishing rules for placement of the listing in the directory. YPG indicated that it requires the Placement Word for business listings when the Sort Word begins with numerics.

Data Interchange sectionReference to the CDIG will be addedReference to the CEL will be added

TELUS provided the information required for Action Item #6 via email after the call had ended. Information in AI#6 has been updated.

15 October 20, 2010 TIF updates were approved and Action Items reviewed.

YPG provided an update for AI#11 (AN for “delete”): If the end-customer has advertising with YPG, and the New LEC is known to YPG (per arrangements with some LECs), YPG will contact the New LEC re a missing BLIF “add” record. The listing is deleted from the


Serial Date ActivityOld LEC in all cases, but is added in under the New LEC where the “add” BLIF is received.

Further discussion of this TIF was deferred to a call on Oct. 22nd.

16 October 22, 2010 TIF updates were approved and Action Items reviewed

Advance Notification:There was further discussion regarding the YPG response to Action Item #11. - Processing of AN for Deletes. YPG confirmed that the same process is used across Canada and further clarified that if the AN has come from the ILEC, they may be able to tell from the service order that a port is occuring and who the New SP will be. If the customer has directory advertising, YPG will follow up with the New SP.

When YPG receives AN to add a listing that already exists in the database, they can identify the Old SP by the LSPID on the record and will follow up with the OLD SP on the delete record.

AN deletes are held until the Due Date. If no AN add has been received, the listing will be removed from the database (and Directory Assistance) on the Due Date. Unless both LECs involved in the customer transfer use the AN process, it does not work well.

Bell Canada will investigate to determine their logic and process for handling AN adds when no AN delete has been received

Exchange FieldDiscussion focused on the business issues that had been encountered due to duplicate exchange name abbreviations.It was determined that adding the Province Code would not resolve the problems in all cases.Use of the NPA-NXX was suggested, but that field is not part of the Exchange Header File.Participants agreed that the problem needs to be considered further and a workable solution developed, but in consideration of time this will be discussed at a future meeting.

Validation of DeletesA proposal was made that validation of records for deletions be limited to the Telephone Number, Service Provider ID and Customer Last Name or Business Name (i.e.Sort Word)

The List of BLIF & CLIF issues will be reviewed at the next regular BPWG meeting.

17 November 17, 2010 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the action items

Sam provided a response to Action Item #12 (see Action Items)

Participants reviewed the few outstanding items in the BLIF


Serial Date Activityguidelines

Any suggestions on ways to improve the AN process are to be submitted by Close of Business Dec 9 for review at the Dec 16 meeting.

Further discussion on resolving the issue of duplicate exchange name abbreviations is deferred to the February meeting

The proposal to reduce the validation of delete records to 3 fields (TN, LSPID & Sort Word) was modified to include the Subsequent Word field for business listings:

Residential listing validation: TN, LSPID & Sort Word (last name)

Business listing validation: TN, LSPID, Sort Word & Subsequent Word (full business name)

18 December 16, 2010 The TIF was reviewed and approved with minor corrections.Participants reviewed the latest changes to the Guidelines.

ScopeThe updates provided by Peter were verbally reviewed and will be left in track changes mode in the next draft of the guidelines

AN ProcessSam noted that those LECs who are not using the AN process may want to consider it, as there is effort spent tracking down missing listings during book closing. Lisa from YPG supported this idea, as they get requests, directly from SPs to add listings after Directory Close.Participants are to review and provide comments and responses to the following questions (in contribution form) by Feb 16.

1) Is there a need for Advance Listing Notification?2) If Yes – should use of AN be mandatory?

Duplicate Exchange Name AbbreviationsA better understanding of the problem and further discussion is required to address this issue.

Validation of Delete and Out/In RecordsParticipants are to review internally, the proposal to reduce the validation of Deletes and Outs, and provide a position at the February meeting.

Proposed New Error CodesCathy will review internally to see is this is still required, now that we have clarified the timing of listing deletes and adds in porting situations

The BLIF & CLIF Issues list (up to line 35) was reviewed resulting in the following action items:

The description and use of Action Indicators needs to be expanded in BLIF guidelines

Participants are to propose acceptable volume thresholds for BLIF

Cathy to provide more information on the Audit Process that Direct West has been using to validate LEC listings before


Serial Date Activitygoing to print

We will complete the review of the Issues at our next meeting.

19 January 21, 2011 Participants reviewed and approved the updated TIF

Sam Glazer presented Bell Canada Contribution BPCO107i

20 February 23, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the Action Items

Diane presented Distributel contribution BPCO107j.This lead to a discussion of which carriers use the AN process and which do not.The following carriers currently use /support the AN process:

Bell Canada Bell Aliant Bell West (somewhat) SaskTel (somewhat)

TELUS & MTS Allstream are to determine if they support the AN process and provide an update at the next meeting.

Cathy presented the SaskTel contribution BPCO107l, and after discussion agreed that the best solution would be for all carriers to use the AN process.

There was additional discussion on how large of a problem this was and how often incorrect or missing listings occurred. Anne (MTSA) noted that as a national CLEC consistency would be good, rather than each SP doing something different.Lisa (YPG) suggested if the use of AN is not made mandatory, that the guidelines should identify the impacts of not using the process. Cathy noted that wording to that effect had been added to the guidelines.

Rogers contribution BPCO107k is still pending

Participants discussed volume thresholds. A 50k daily limit had been proposed in one of the earlier contributions, however this level of volume would be excessive for LECs with numerous trading partners. A suggestion was made that LECs be rated as small, medium or large and assigned an appropriate volume threshold.Some of the carriers were okay with this approach: TELUS, Videotron & Bell Aliant needed to have some internal discussion before providing a response.

EastLink inquired if use of the AN process would increase record volumes. Participants indicated that it would only change the timing of when the listing was sent.

BLIF GuidelinesCarriers reviewed the latest version of the BLIF Guidelines:

Sam presented some examples where the same abbreviation is used for two different exchanges and also examples where the same exchange has a different abbreviation in TELUS’ databases than in Bell’s. (The samples provided were specific to Quebec and not all


Serial Date Activityinclusive. There were some ‘errors’ identified in the sample and will need to be fixed.) The other issues would require system work to modify one of the abbreviations and to convert existing directory numbers. Okacha asked if the abbreviations came from a single source, but it was the ILECs who assigned the abbreviations, long before competition existed.

Peter asked if we could use a different field, such as the 8 digit CLLI code? This would also require a significant amount of work to convert systems to CLLI codes and then retrofit directory processes.

The issue of conflicting exchange names came up for Videotron about 3 years ago. More investigation is required to determine how Videotron is dealing with these situations.Brad said that EastLink ran into the same problem 2 years ago in the Sudbury area, and that they use data mapping to address the exchange name issues between TELUS & Bell.

The contact name & comments fields have been flagged in the guidelines for deletion the next time system changes are made. The Yellow Page contacts will be added to the Carrier contact & escalations list.

Cathy presented the sample directory audit file. Currently Direct West (SaskTel’s directory publisher) is the only publisher sending out these audit files.

Participants discussed the idea of requiring AS2 as the standard for exchange of BLIF records. It was noted that there is a cost and time impact to both parties to be considered when mechanizing BLIF processes.

CLIF Guidelines

Participants reviewed CLIF guidelines up to end of page 11. Updates made due to changes in roles since the guidelines were first issued.It was noted, that billing issues arise where the CLEC does not offer CLIF and refers the customer to the directory publisher.The documented process for change of listing prime is not being followed. Rogers & MTS Allstream will both investigate internally and provide an update at our next meeting.

21 March 17, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates with minor changes and reviewed the action items.

Noelle identified that TELUS does not support the AN process for its retail customers, nor does it initiate BLIFs to other ILECs with an AN.

Peter Lang presented Rogers contribution BPCO107k outlining their opposition to making the AN process mandatory.

22 April 21, 2011 The TIF review was deferred to May meeting.

Participants reviewed the latest changes to the BLIF Guidelines.Lisa & Krysia from YPG felt that the proposed new error codes 0320 & 0321 would result in a higher number rejects. Currently YPG


Serial Date Activityrecycles listings for a number of days, waiting for the Old Service Provider to issue a Delete, rather than rejecting them. If no Delete is received, the listings are manually handled. Sam clarified that the new error codes would be used to assign a reason to the rejected listing when no Delete had been received after a reasonable time.

23 May 12, 2011 The TIF updates were approved and the action items reviewed.

Participants reviewed the outstanding BLIF Guideline items: Changing the Contact & Comment fields to filler characters will

require coordination between service providers and it will be noted that this change is to be implemented the next time that an industry wide system change of BLIF occurs.

A section will be added to the front of the BLIF guidelines to identify the proposed changes in the BLIF guidelines, explaining when they will be implemented.

The issue of duplicate exchange names seems to have been addressed bi-laterally between the impacted parties, so no further action is required at this time

We may be able to implement the new error codes 320 & 321 on a LEC by LEC basis, depending on how LEC systems are set up. All LECs are to investigate if system work (beyond table updates) is required.

Cathy will prepare a draft report on the BLIF guidelines for review at the July meeting.

Participants continued the review of the CLIF Guidelines (pages 12 – 27) Publishing LEC will be changed to Publishing Prime, as in some

territories the LEC does not play a role in the publishing of CLIF Files.

Lisa from YPG raised a concern around billing issues with Resellers. She will provide a written explanation for review at our next meeting.

Information on the handling of governmental listings and Government Directory Listing Coordinators will be added to the CLIF guidelines

Need to determine if Wireless Numbers are still considered chargeable listings

Cathy will determine it we need to do a group review all of the CLIF forms at our July meeting.

A special meeting was set for May 25, 2011, to continue review of the Directory Guidelines.

24 May 25, 2011 The TIF updates from May 12 were reviewed, however, as not all participants had received the latest version of the TIF approval will be delayed until the July meeting.

Participants reviewed the outstanding BLIF issues resulting in the following activitiesIssue #4

Kristy Reyner to review Shaw contribution to determine if their concerns have been addressed

A description of Directory Close processes will be added to Section 5 of the guidelines

Issues #3, #12, #24, #27


Serial Date Activity Some LECS are addressing volume issues on a bi-lateral

basis. TELUS contribution pending

Issue #22 Completed The AN Process is documented in Section 5 of

the BLIF guidelinesIssue #25

YPG is not able to provide audit files prior to directory printing,

Processes exist in Bell & Bell Aliant for LECs to validate troublesome listings. This information will be added to the Directory Close process section.

Issues #29 & #36 Proposed solutions are pending final agreement and

implementation planIssues #5, 17, 16, 18, 23, 26, 30, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41

A proposal to hold ‘Delete’ records for 15 - 30 days around Directory Close was briefly discussed. This will be investigated further when we review the Directory Close processes.

Issues #41 & 15 Complete: Addressed in Scope Section

25 July 20, 2011 TIF updates were approved and the action items reviewed

Participants reviewed the changes to the BLIF Guidelines A ‘pending changes’ table has been added to General

section. The table will be finalized once we have determined which changes can be completed right away and which ones will be put on hold.

A new section #5 - Directory Close was added. The note explaining Duplicate Exchange name abbreviations

has been updated.

Participants then reviewed the proposed changes to the BLIF Agreement. It was noted that Bell Canada has a different version of the BLIF Agreement that has been approved by the CRTC that they will share with the group. Sam Glazer explained that Bell Canada had encountered some issues with purchasers ‘reselling’ listings, so they had updated the agreement to address this problem. Participants will compare the Bell Canada version to the Industry version at the next meeting and determine if the changes should be adopted.

Cathy Macknak reviewed the draft report BPRE077a.It was suggested that a background section be added to the report to include information on the BLIF & CLIF Issues list that resulted from the various contributions and how those issues were being addressed. The updated report will be reviewed at the next meeting.

26 August 18, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the action items. TELUS was not on the call to provide updates to Action Items #14, 16 or 19.

Participants reviewed the BLIF & CLIF issues document. The majority of the concerns related to BLIF have been addressed and the last few items should be closed at the September meeting.


Serial Date ActivityThere were 6 items that are being placed on a ‘Potential Future Changes’ list for consideration should the existing processes continue to cause issues.

Participants reviewed the updated report BPRE077a. A response from TELUS is outstanding on one item in the report. Cathy Macknak will follow up with Noelle McKinley to ensure that a response is available for the September meeting. The report will be finalized at that time,

27 September 15, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the action items. TELUS was unable to provide updates to Action Items #14, 16 or 19 during the meeting.

Noelle McKinley asked to have Action Item #6 changed from ‘TELUS in Eastern Canada’ to ‘TELUS Quebec’.

Participants reviewed the BLIF & CLIF Issues document.Issues #12 & 27 related to volume thresholds were discussed.

The Videotron proposal of 50K per day per LEC was reduced to 25K per day per LEC.

Noelle McKinley & Sam Glazer both had concerns with increasing the volume so significantly. If was suggested that volume issues were ‘occasional’ and could usually be accommodated by the receiving LEC if advance notice was provided.

Peter Lang proposed that the 5k per day be retained as the normal volume threshold and that larger volumes be allowed with advance notice of 48 hours.

Noelle McKinley suggested that 5 days advance notice would be better for the recipients

All participants (except Videotron) were agreeable to the proposal that we retain 5k per day per LEC as the normal volume threshold and that larger volumes be accommodated with 5 days advance notice.

Videotron was able to provide some detail on the BLIF volumes: Normal 3k /day, June 7k /day & July 15k /day. Based on these volumes they would prefer a 10k /day volume threshold on a permanent basis.

Both Bell and TELUS stated that they were unable to support a 10k /day threshold for all LECs, but they were open to negotiating bi-lateral arrangements for peak periods (i.e. summer months).

A final agreement was reach that 5k /day /LEC would be retained as the normal volume threshold and that 5 business day’s advance notice should be provided when LECs have a requirement for processing higher volumes.

Issue #28 Closed: No further action required at this time.Issue #36 Closed: All ILECs will be able to implement the 2 new codes within 12 months. There was some discussion about the requirements for LECs to ‘remove’ listings in a timely manner. Wording will be added to Section 17 – Timing of Exchange to emphasize the need for both ‘delete’ & ‘add’ records to be issued in a timely manner.Issue #40 Videotron is still interested in pursuing the addition of Toll Free Numbers and email addresses as an SSL+1.


Serial Date Activity Currently these listings are managed through the CLIF

process, however with more customers requesting these types of listings, could they be accommodated via the BLIF process

All ILECs are to determine if listings for Toll Free Numbers and email addresses could flow through the BLIF process.

Issue #41 Videotron will do some further investigation to determine what the specific ‘French character’ problem was, and will provide additional detail at the next meeting

Participant reviewed Report BPRE077a.The only outstanding issue is TELUS’ response to Action Item #14An additional meeting was scheduled for Sept 27, 2011 to finalize the report.

Participants resumed review of the CLIF Guidelines: Pages 15 to 31.Review will continue at the October meeting with CLIF Sample Layout Forms

28 September 27, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the Action Items.

Participants reviewed and approved Report BPRE077a and BLIF Guidelines Version 2.0. Cathy Macknak will update the documents and send final versions to BPWG Chair (Peter Lang) for distribution.

Peter Lang will distribute the documents for final review; comments are due by close of business Friday Sept 30, 2011 If there are no substantive comments, the report will be filed on Oct 3, 2011

The BLIF & CLIF Issues document was also reviewed & updated.

29 October 19, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the Action Items

Participants reviewed the BLIF & CLIF Issues list.Issue #40 – ILEC responses are due for the Nov meetingIssue #41 was closed, as Videotron has not encountered any further issues with the French Characters,

30 November 17, 2011 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the Action Items. Action Item #24 - Adding Toll free numbers and e-mail

addresses as SSL+1 listing would require major system changes for all providers. Noelle questioned if there was sufficient business need to require a change. Melanie felt the CLIF process is very manual and complex and that it would simplify the process if e-mail and /or toll free numbers could be listed via BLIF. After discussion, it was agreed that this issue would be moved to the “Potential Future Changes’ tab, and could be revisited if there was substantial need for a change.

Participants continued review of the CLIF guidelines document.2.Scope Peter Lang asked what the views of parties are with regard to


Serial Date Activitythe process for updating Yellow Page listings when a customer moves from one service provider to another.

YPG said when they get an ‘out order’ from the old provider; they wait for the ‘in order’ from the new provider. If there are paid advertisements, YPG would dial the phone number to see if it’s still in service, and if it is, they will ask if the customer wants to continue their advertisements.

Sam inquired about customers who have advertisements that are paid for by their ONSP. YPG said, in those situations, when they get an out order, they will bill any remaining monthly payments left in the contract, or they will make other arrangements for the customer to continue to make monthly payments for the remainder of the term of the advertising.

Cathy noted that the Direct West processes are the same. Sam suggested that it be noted somewhere in the CLIF

document that customers should contact their directory provider to make arrangements for directory advertising?

YPG didn’t think that additional wording was required, as their current processes cover these situations and they do contact the customer and changes/updates should be handled as per the customer’s request.

Wording will be added that customers with directory advertising requirements should be advised to contact their directory publisher.

Discussion on paragraph 3: When there is a change in ownership of the CLIF setup, there is no notification process for LECs. In some Territories, the previous owner is responsible for adjusting their records and submitting an update or ‘Out CLIF’, and the new owner will submit an ‘In CLIF’. (e.g. where Bell is the ILEC) However in other situations, the customer would deal directly with the ILEC or Directory Publisher, so it would be the customer’s responsibility to provide notification of the change in CLIF Owner. (e.g. where Telus is the ILEC).

Peter noted that in certain territories, the CLEC has no choice – if they want to offer CLIF services then their customers may have to deal directly with the publisher. In other instances they can choose to not offer CLIF, offer it through the ILEC, or they could deal directly with the Publisher. The CLIF document will be updated to include an explanation of these various situations.

Other updates were reviewed and accepted

3. Roles and Responsibilities Cathy proposed a blanket change of the word ‘Subscriber’ to

‘Customer’ in this document. Tracey felt that this then made it unclear the differentiation between a Company as a customer and the End User as a customer. Sam noted that the word subscriber is used in the BLIF document. No changes were made at this time.

Other updates were reviewed and accepted.

4. Listings Prime Updates were reviewed and accepted.

6. Publishing Prime Updates were reviewed and accepted. Minor wording changes were discussed, and updated


Serial Date Activity

7. Directory Coordinator Definition and responsibilities reviewed and accepted

8. Complex Listing Definition Minor updates reviewed and accepted

9. Definition of Non Basic Listing Minor updates reviewed and accepted

10. Complex Listing Interchange Form Rewording reviewed and accepted.

11. Complex Listing Interchange Form Field Definitions Version question – is the first version field blank or populated

with a default value? The examples show the version as blank. Version field is updated to alpha or numeric, at the discretion of

the issuing party. LOI Field – YPG to verify if Right Justified is still not available

from all publishers. Right Justified is not available from all publishers. For example, YPG has 7 levels of indent under the header but none is right justified.

Discussion around field length for add/deletes/revisions – noted that this field will have a 4 character limit.

Comments field noted to have a 50 character limit. Other updates were reviewed and accepted.

CLIF Sample Layouts Reviewed suggested changes.

18. Process Flow for Complex Listings Minor revisions reviewed and accepted. Publishing Prime CLIF Setup timeframes noted as 5 - 30 days.

Discussion around if this is too broad. Sam noted that typically any records going into upcoming book closes will take precedence, which is why there is such a range in the timeframe. There was a request to reduce this timeframe, which may not be realistic.

Peter noted that maybe we could update it to reference shorter timeframe near to a directory close. Sam will find out what the typical turnaround time is at Bell for processing CLIF files. Also need to understand how long the Directory Close periods are to determine if this approach would make sense.

19. Exception Handling Minor changes reviewed and accepted.

Glossary of Terms Minor changes reviewed and accepted. Directory Coordinator definition added. Cathy will review the definitions in the document to ensure they

are consistent with those provided in the Glossary of Terms.

Issues Log Revisited Guidelines with process for Government Blue Page

listings (issue 1) were updated in the definitions. Sam noted that he still gets questions on government listing


Serial Date Activityand how they work, so we may need some more detail here. Sam will look into the details and write something up. We can decide where this will go later.

Issue 2 closed. Issue 6 remains open - process for situations where the

service provider does not offer CLIF still has to be visited (the option for the customer to go directly to the publisher does not exist in all territories).

Issues 14 and 37 – there are no notes on method of exchange in the CLIF guidelines.

Sam will provide some information on the process for wireless customers and the CLIF process.

Reviewed Example Compiled with Reseller. Sam said we would look to the CLEC to provide the information; we don’t need a relationship with the Reseller. If there is something to be invoiced, the CLEC would be the one invoiced, and the relationship between the CLEC and the Reseller should be transparent. Lisa noted that this could be problematic if the Reseller doesn’t support charges for CLIF. Sam noted that in this case it wouldn’t be sent in the first place, so then it shouldn’t be an issue (or the CLEC would absorb the costs?).

Cathy clarified that the issue is that if the ILEC gets the direction from the customer directly, they would then turn around and charge the CLEC directly. If in turn the reseller then does not support the charges, this is where the issue arises. In these cases, should the customer not be able to be charged directly for those charges? It was decided that we would leave this as an open item and gather feedback for the next meeting to see if this needs to be addressed. Action Item: Where companies provide CLIF services to resellers, how does the process work, and are there billing issues that arise?

31 January 18, 2012 TIF updates were approved with minor corrections and Action Items were reviewed and updated.

Participants reviewed CLIF Guidelines (draft 6) and approved most of the outstanding changes.

The sections on ‘Government Listings’ and ‘Listings for Wireless Numbers’ provided by Sam, was reviewed. The process for including Government listings as both Business and in the Government section was discussed, and while it doesn’t happen often, the Business listing would be submitted via BLIF and the Government Listing included in the CLIF setup. Typically the CLIF listing is considered the additional (chargeable) listing.The section on Government Lists was accepted.

Most of the wording for the section on Wireless Numbers was accepted, however Cathy needs to confirm that SaskTel processes for WSPs to submit wireless listings is the same as documented.

Glossary of Terms still needs to be updated

Participants reviewed the BLIF & CLIF issues document and the only issues that still need to be addressed are: #13 Timeframes for processing of CLIFs and #’s 4 & 37 That file acknowledgments should be sent by the same method the CLIF was received. Cathy


Serial Date Activitywill add some wording to the Guidelines for review at our next meeting.

Sam made the group aware of a problem that Bell recently encountered during the setup of BLIF with a new LEC. The definition of ‘Listing Count’ in the BLIF guidelines is unclear, and caused some issues for Bell during a recent BLIF implementation. Sam will provide some proposed wording for the next meeting.

Cathy noted that the new version of the BLIF Guidelines (BLGLBLIF20) was approved in Telecom Decision CRTC 2011-792, Changes are to be implemented no later than Dec 31, 2012

32 April 19, 2012 The Action Items were reviewed and updated

Participants reviewed the CLIF Guidelines accepting all outstanding changes. It was noted that during the March 15 meeting a concern was raised that the CLIF guidelines are not explicit enough and that we should consider other examples that could be added to the document. Participants are to investigate and identify complex listing examples that could be added. These should be circulated before (or brought to) the May BPWG meeting in Calgary

It was noted that CLOG Section 9 – Related References required updating to indicate that the BPWG is now accountable for the BLIF & CLIF documentation. Section 9 will be updated and included in CLOG Bulletin 6 (under TIF71)

Participants reviewed the BLIF Agreement, noting the differences between the standard template and the version that Bell is currently using (both are CRTC approved). Participants are to review the proposed changes internally and respond with comments at any BPWG General monthly meeting. The intention is to complete a final review of the agreement at the Sept meeting

Diane Dolan raised a concern with the limited information in the BLIF guidelines related to the Hexadecimal values of French Characters. This issue required further investigation and will be discussed at the May meeting

Note: The proposed wording for the Listing Count definition in BLIF was not reviewed during the April 19th meeting. It will be discussed at the next meeting.

33 May 23, 2012 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the action items.

CLIF GuidelinesSam Glazer reviewed an example he had provided of a residential CLIF listing for a telephone number that is being added for a second time with the same address but under a different name. This example will be included in the guidelines. Alternately, customers could list 2 names in a single BLIF listing (Jane Doe and John Smith), but it would only be sorted under the one surname (Smith).

Anne Gertzbein identified several types of listings for which


Serial Date Activity‘examples’ had not been provided in the guidelines: 900 numbers Wireless non-LEC numbers Text (e.g. Internet URLs) Service Finder Numbers

Lisa Lamontange indicated that White Page listings for Internet URLs would be handled by Bell, while YPG would handle any Internet URLs listed in the Yellow Pages.

Sam Glazer will check at Bell for examples of these listing types and Cathy Macknak will check with Direct West.

Michelle Dupuis will investigate how Telus handles requests to list Internet URLs

Anne Gertzbein indicated she had some questions about a Governmental CLIF listings request. She will discuss this off-line with Bell Aliant and let the group know if any changes or clarification is needed to the section on Government listings in the guidelines

BLIF GuidelinesSam Glazer reviewed his proposal for clarifying the “count” field definitions in both the Header and Trailer records. In summary: Listing Count = all TNs submitted in the file Listings Accepted = Listing Count minus any errors or rejected

listing Record Count = All the records submitted (an SSL+1 contains

two TNs but is counted as 1 record)

French Character SetA concern had been raised at the last meeting with regard to the accuracy and completeness of the French Character Set in the BLIF Guidelines. Sam Glazer provided participants with information related to the CLOG & CWNPG ISO8859.1 characters sets and has determined that the EBCDIC values for the French characters identified in the BLIF Guidelines are correct; however they are incomplete as they only list the lower case letters.

ACTION: Sam will assist Cathy in adding the EBCDIC Values for the upper case letters to the guidelines.

ACTION: A version 2.1 of the BLIF guidelines incorporating these changes will be prepared for review at our next meeting.

BLIF AgreementCathy provided feedback from SaskTel Legal Counsel, that SaskTel is in favour of adopting the proposed changes to the agreement, but noted a duplication of wording between the 1st & 3rd recitals (this was incorrectly reported as the 1st & 2nd recitals during the meeting).

34 July 18, 2012 Participants approved the TIF updates and reviewed the action items.

Cathy Macknak reviewed the revisions to the BLIF Guidelines and the additional listing examples that had been added to the CLIF Guidelines. There were no additional changes proposed to either


Serial Date Activitydocument.

Participants also reviewed the BLIF & CLIF Issues list and the two outstanding CLIF issues were closed.

Cathy will prepare a draft report for review at the August meeting.

35 August 16, 2012 Participants approved the TIF updates

Cathy Macknak reviewed draft report BPRE077b. Some changes were proposed to the report and a second draft will be issued for review at the September meeting.

36 September 19, 2012 Participants approved the TIF updates.

Cathy Macknak reviewed updated report BPRE077b, which was approved with some minor changes. Cathy will send the final report to Peter Lang for submission to the Steering Committee.

Sam Glazer reviewed the proposed changes to the BLIF agreement, which are based on changes that Bell Canada has made to their agreement and Tariffs in an effort to address issues related to the resale and /or redistribution of Directory Listing Information

Michelle Dupuis provided TELUS’ feedback, proposing a change to the definition of Service, and the removal of a reference to a Bell Tariff Item.

Diane Dolan provided Distributel feedback that they felt the description of ‘Telephone Directories’ was fairly restrictive, but that they could live with it.

Draft 4 of the agreement will be circulated for final review and legal comment by participants. All feedback is due at the Oct 18, 2012 meeting.

Cathy will prepare a draft report for filing the updated agreement.

37 October 24, 2012 TIF Updates were approved and action items reviewed

Cathy provided a high-level review of the changes being proposed to the BLIF Agreement and participants were canvassed for feedback:

SaskTel & Distributel had previously stated they were okay with the changes

Bell – Sam proposed some minor corrections to the agreement.

TELUS – requested clarification on paragraph 9.3 and needs additional legal review.

MTSA – Tracey proposed some additional wording for sections 17.1 & 18.1. These will be circulated in an updated draft of the agreement.

Rogers – okay with changes Videotron – okay with changes Shaw – okay with changes Eastlink – okay with changes Bell Aliant – okay with changes

An updated agreement and report will be circulated for further review.

38 November 15, 2012 Participants approved the TIF Updates and reviewed the outstanding


Serial Date ActivityAction Items.

The latest draft of the BLIF Agreement was reviewed. All outstanding changes were accepted and no additional changes were proposed. Action Item #38 will now be considered closed.

Participants reviewed report BPRE077c which was approved with some minor changes. The updated Report & BLIF Agreement will be sent to Peter Lang who will submit them to the CISC steering committee for review at their next meeting.

This TIF will remain open pending CRTC approval of BPRE077c

ACTION REGISTER:Serial Action Prime Status

1 All BPWG members to review Bell Contribution BPCO107c and provide comments by Sept 11, 2009.

All Complete – All BPWG Members (excluding TELUS)Closed

2 All BPWG members to provide proposed changes to the BLIF and CLIF Guidelines in contribution form by October 6, 2009.

All Closed

3 All BPWG members to provide proposed changes to the BLIF and CLIF Guidelines in contribution form by November 12, 2009.

All Closed

4 All BPWG members to provide proposed changes to the BLIF and CLIF Guidelines in contribution formJuly 21, 2010 - TELUS will not be submitting a contribution at this time

All Closed

5 Cathy to compile a summary of contributions, identifying the common issues, contribution reference and cross reference to BLIF/CLIF Guideline section for review.

Cathy Closed

6 Determine what data in the listing record must be an ‘exact match’ before a delete record is accepted /processedSept 13 – Moved information from Serial #11 to this Action Item.

Bell Canada: Residential & Business SPID Listing Type (SSL or SSL+1) B/R/G Indicator Sort Word & subsequent word (Surname or

Business Name) NPA Line Number: (7 digit TN) Sub-List Text (indented information line)

SaskTel: Residential SPID TN (7 digit) Sort Word (Surname) Subsequent Word (First Initial /Name)

Business are manually processed

All ILECS Completed – Oct 6


Serial Action Prime StatusTELUS: Residential & Business in Western Canada

SPID TN Sort Word (last name) Subsequent Word (First Initial)

TELUS: Business in Quebec Exchange Service provider ID Sort Word or business name Subsequent Word Address: civic number, street name and community

name Telephone number

Bell Aliant: Residential & Business SPID TN (NPA /NXX /LINE NO) Customer Name (Sort Word and Subsequent word) Customer Address

MTS Allstream (provided Sept 22 via email) SPID TN (NPA /NXX /LINE NO) Sort Word (Last Name) Subsequent Word (First Name) If the order being sent by the CLEC does not

match the listing data being held in the YPG Listing Database it is queried back to the originator by the clerk working the order.

7 Arrange for Directory Publishers (Yellow Pages Group and Direct West) to participate in the BLIF /CLIF discussion at the September meeting.

SamCathy

Closed

8 Add Field Position information to the BLIF Field Matrix in the guidelines

Cathy Closed

9 Add new section on Advance Notification process Cathy Closed

10 Provide wording for ‘Scope’ section on LECs use of BLIF files for Directory Assistance services.

Peter Lang

Complete – Dec 16, 2010

11 Review how Advance Notificiation for Deletes are handled with regard to numbers that are porting.

YPG Completed – Oct. 20, 2010

12 Bell Canada to determine their process /logic for handling AN adds when no AN delete has been received

If an old listing exists, the new AN will error out for manual processing. The AN Add keeps getting recycled to avoid rejecting the listing. Clean up of these records is done before a directory close, and, the cleanup of Residential listing is easier than Business listings as Bell’s system will allow more than one listing for a Telephone number. ANs are not processed until the Effective Date.

Sam Glazer

Completed – Nov 17, 2010

13 Any suggestions on ways to improve the AN process are to All Closed - AN


Serial Action Prime Statusbe submitted by Close of Business Dec 9 for review at the Dec 16 meeting.

Participants are to review and provide comments and responses the following questions (in contribution form) .

1) Is there a need for Advance Notices?2) If Yes – should use of ANs be mandatory?

Process should not be made mandatory

14 Participants are to provide their position on reducing validation of Deletes or paired Out /In records as follows: :

Residential Listing: TN, LSPID & Sort Word Business Listing: TN, LSPID, Sort Word &

Subsequent WordParticipants supporting the change in Process:Bell Canada, Distributel, SaskTelBell Aliant (by email Feb 23, 2011)Videotron (by email Mar 16, 2011)MTSA, YPG and Shaw (by email) support the reduced validationsTELUS email dated June 1, 2011 stated that they did not support this change as is would result in additional manual work for them. Additional information on the volume of manual work is to be providedTELUS is able to support the reduced validation.

All Closed – Sept 27, 2011

15 Update the information on the Action indicators in the guidelines to explain how they are to be used

Cathy Complete – Jan 12, 2011

16 Participants are to propose acceptable volume thresholds for BLIFTELUS will not issue a contribution, but will provide comments.TELUS is aligned to retaining the 5k per day per LEC volume thresholds, with occasional larger volume requirements being managed on a bi-lateral basis with 5 days advance notice

LECs Closed - Sept 27, 2011

17 TELUS & MTS Allstream are to determine if they support the AN process and provide an update at the next meeting.TELUS response provided on March 16May 11, 2011 – MTSA does not support AN process, nor should it be mandatory

TELUSMTSA

Completed – May 11, 2011

18 Rogers & MTS Allstream will both investigate the process they use for change of listing prime. Update to be provided at our next meeting.

RogersMTSA

Closed – no formal process is being followed

19 Determine the system impacts of adding the new error codes 320 & 321Distributel, SaskTel, Rogers, MTSA, EastLink and Shaw (via email after the meeting) can add these error codes via simple system updatesBell would require a system changeBell Aliant would require a system changeTELUS would require a system change.All ILECs can complete this work by Dec 31, 2012

All LECs Closed – Sept 15, 2011


Serial Action Prime Status

20 Determine if wireless numbers are still considered Non-basic listingsJuly 21, 2011 – Wireless numbers are still considered non-basic listings.

Cathy Complete – July 20, 2011

21 MTSA was to investigate how they populate the Publishing Prime SPID in the CLIF forms

We (MTSA) use this field when sending a CLIF to Aliant and we populate it with the Aliant Local Service Provider ID (8089). Because of the business relationship that we have with Bell, they complete the CLIF form and either leave the field blank or populate their own Local Service Provider ID (8050 or 8051, depending on the province).

MTSA Complete – May 25, 2011

22 Add a description of Directory Close processes Section 5 of the BLIF guidelines

Cathy Complete – July 8, 2011

23 Participants to review the outstanding BLIF Issues and their original contributions to determine if their concerns are still valid.

All Complete – Sept 15, 2011

24 All ILECs to determine if listings for Toll Free Numbers and email addresses could be accommodated through the BLIF process.It was clarified that email & toll free numbers could not be considered for Main Listings, but must be an SSL+1

Bell Canada – system work would be required for either; there is currently no field that would accommodate an email address, and Toll free numbers are not local to an exchange.

TELUS – both system & process changes would be required. Would like to know the business need.

Rogers – significant systems work required to accommodate email address, less for toll free listings. Rogers also wanted to understand the business need.

MTSA – Systems changes Bell Aliant – System changes SaskTel – significant system changes for email, less for

toll free YPG – System changes required

Currently, email addresses and toll free numbers can be added via CLIF. Videotron put the proposal forward because it would be simpler to submit these listings through BLIF. After further discussion it was agreed that there was not sufficient business heed to warrant making changes at this time. The issue will be moved to the future possible changes list.

ILECs Closed - Nov 18, 2011

25 Videotron will do some further investigation into Issue #41 to determine what the specific ‘French character’ problem was, and will provide additional detail at the next meeting.Videotron has not experienced any further issues with processing of French characters.

Videotron Closed - Oct 19, 2011

26 Update Section 17 – Timing of Exchange to emphasize the need for both ‘delete’ & ‘add’ records to be issued in a

Cathy Closed - Sept 27, 2011


Serial Action Prime Statustimely manner.

27 Report BPRE077a and BLIF Guidelines Version 2.0 will be circulated for final review; comments are due by close of business Friday Sept 30, 2011 If there are no substantive comments, the report will be filed on Oct 3, 2011Report filed Oct 3, 2011

PeterAll

Closed – Oct 3, 2011

28 Wording will be added that customers with directory advertising requirements should be advised to contact their directory publisher

Cathy Complete

29 Wording will be added to the CLIF document to explain that that in certain territories, the CLEC may have no choice – if they want to offer CLIF services then their customers may have to deal directly with the publisher, in other instances they can choose to not offer CLIF, they can offer it through the ILEC, or they could deal directly with the Publisher.

Cathy Complete

30 YPG will verify if the LOI Field can be Right Justified in all cases or if this option is still not available from some publishers

YPG Closed

31 Determine what Bell’s typical turnaround time is for processing CLIF files. Bell’s priority is always the current directory close,

with all other updates being secondary. The 5 – 30 day interval reflects the need to expedite some CLIF submissions while others must wait.

YPG indicated that they prioritize the same way as Bell due to the volumes of updates received for a book close.

MTSA supported the Bell position, indicating that they experience good response times at Directory Close, with slightly longer timelines for other CLIF submissions.

Videotron indicated that 75% of their orders are processed in 30 – 90 days, with expedites being handled more quickly. Videotron & Bell will follow up off-line.

Sam Closed

32 Review the definitions in the document to ensure they are consistent with those provided in the Glossary of Terms

Cathy Closed

33 LECs who provide CLIF services to resellers should determine if they encounter issues related to billing for CLIF listings. Rogers & MTS Allstream indicated that they do not

have any significant billing issues for CLIF listings involving Resellers

RogersDistributelMTSAVideotron

Closed

34 Wording will be added to the guidelines to state that CLIF Acknowledgements should be issued in the same method (Fax or email) that the CLIF was received.

Cathy Closed

35 Determine if SaskTel process for handing WSP listings is the same as the process proposed for the Guidelines

Cathy Closed

36 Propose new wording to clarify the BLIF definition of ‘Listing Count’.

Sam Closed

37 Identify complex listing examples that could be added to the CLIF for additional clarity

All Closed

38 All Participants to review internally the proposed changes to the BLIF Agreement and provided comments for review

All Closed


Serial Action Prime Statusby the group. Final review of the agreement will take place at the Sept meeting.Additional review is required as a result of feedback provided Oct 18, 2013

39 Add examples of: 900 numbers, Wireless non-LEC numbers, Text (e.g. Internet URL’s & Service Finder Numbers) to the CLIF Guidelines

SamCathy

Complete

40 Determine how TELUS handles requests to list Internet URLs in the White Pages Alberta & British Columbia - TELUS does not handle

the CLIF process, therefore, the customer would have to speak with YPG about having the URL included in their listing.

Quebec – The customer would send the request to TELUS and TELUS would forward it to YPG

Michelle Complete

41 The EBCDIC values for the upper case French letters will be added to the guidelines.

CathySam

Complete

42 Version 2.1 of the BLIF guidelines will be prepared for review at our June meeting.

Cathy Complete

43 Prepare a draft report (BPRE077b) for review at August meeting

Cathy Complete

44 Prepare a draft report (BPRE077c) for review at October meeting

Cathy Complete

TIF CONTRIBUTION LOG:ID# Date Originator TitleBPCO107a July 8, 2009 Videotron CLIF Listings for Governmental Customers

BPCO107b July 16 2009 Shaw BLIF CLIF Industry Processes

BPCO107c August 25, 2009 Bell Canada BLIF Guidelines Update

BPCO107d October 6 2009 Videotron BLIF and CLIF Industry Process

BPCO107e October 15, 2009 Shaw BLIF and CLIF Industry Process

BPCO107f November 19, 2009 Rogers BLIF and CLIF Industry Process

BPCO107g January 6, 2010 SaskTel BLIF and CLIF Industry Process

BPCO107h January 6, 2010 Videotron BLIF and CLIF Industry Process

BPCO107i January 12, 2011 Bell Canada Review of BLIF and CLIF Industry Documentation

BPCO107j February 16, 2011 Distributel Requirement for Advance Notices

BPCO107k March 16, 2011 Rogers BLIF Guidelines

BPCO107l February 15, 2011 SaskTel BLIF Guidelines

Exchange Abbreviations

December 20, 2010 Bell Canada Exchange Name Abbreviation Conflicts and Discrepancies

Directory Audit

February 16, 2011 SaskTel Directory Audit Sample Report
