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Customer Notice - Re: International Calls into Belize
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Recently there have been a number of instances where persons overseas calling into Belize have been unable to connect to the Belize telephone number.
First of all it is important to understand that BTL's international links are all with major carriers such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, and our connection point with those carriers is just outside Miami via a submarine fiber cable. We have more than enough capacity on those international links to meet even our maximum peak usage. Tests are also regularly conducted between Belize and the Miami connection point, to confirm that there are no problems with any of our international links, and that calls connect properly to fixed and cellular numbers.
Unfortunately, for persons overseas making a call into Belize (using their normal Foreign Service provider), their call may not even reach the connection point at Miami. That is because those overseas service providers will use small overseas transit carriers which offer cheap rates to carry calls between the call originating point and the Miami connection point. Even the larger overseas service providers will utilize these small transit carriers to help them save money transporting calls across the US. Some cheap transit routes will have a very high failure rate due to the low quality IP circuits that are used, heavy utilization which causes severe congestion, and calls may even be routed to Arkansas in the US (which uses a code 1-501 that is similar to the 501 code used by Belize).
The result of this situation will from time to time result in low quality service and failed call attempts, and only when the overseas service provider realizes this, will they stop using that particular transit carrier.
BTL has no control over these call failures because the small overseas transit carriers are NOT connected with BTL, and we have no idea which of those transit carriers is being used. Not only that, but even the Customer Service Department in the originating overseas service provider will be unaware of the cheap routes used by someone in their corporate traffic management department.
What is necessary is for the overseas caller to complain bitterly to their service provider. Tell them to contact their traffic management department and ask them to conduct their own tests with BTL, or with the international connection point at Miami. Only then will this problem be resolved and we can return to normal. In the interim, BTL will continue to correspond with the major carriers on this issue. |
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