International Numbering Plans

The call routing component of CallManager is extensible. In previous sections, the @ wildcard has always been described in the context of the North American numbering plan. As described in the section "@ Wildcard," the @ wildcard is a macro that, based on the numbering plan you select, adds many route patterns on your behalf. By default, CallManager Administration permits you to select only North American Numbering Plan from the Numbering Plan drop-down list.

The list of route patterns that CallManager adds is available in an administrator-accessible file. In the installation directory of CallManager is a subdirectory called dialPlan. (The CallManager service parameter DialPlanPath tells CallManager where to look for the numbering plan file.) When CallManager initializes, it looks in this subdirectory for information about the supported numbering plans. When you configure an @ pattern from the Route Pattern Configuration or Translation Pattern Configuration pages, you are instructing CallManager to expand the @ wildcard according to one of the files in this subdirectory.

You can modify how CallManager interprets the @ pattern by modifying the dial plan file; however, Cisco TAC does not support such modifications of the dial plan file. Furthermore, while changing the file does affect how CallManager expands the @ pattern, it does not affect how CallManager Administration presents other dial plan-related settings, such as digit discarding instructions or route filters. Rather, the administration pages derive this information from tables that exist in the CallManager database schema. Nevertheless, examining the files in the dialPlans subdirectory, you can see exactly how CallManager interprets the @ pattern on a dial-plan-by-dial-plan basis.

File Format

The file is a little more complex than just a list of route patterns, however, because for CallManager to correctly apply digit discarding instructions and route filters, you need to tell it what substrings of a given number are meaningful for routing purposes. For example, the seven-digit North American numbering plan route pattern [2-9]XX XXXX contains two meaningful substrings, an office code and a subscriber.

As described in the section "Tags," these meaningful substrings are called tags. The tags defined for a given numbering plan dictate which tags are available on the Route Filter Configuration page and which parts of a dialed number can be discarded using digit discarding instructions.

The following is a short excerpt from the NANP file, which defines the North American numbering plan, that describes a long distance number preceded by a request for a particular long distance carrier:

 # 101 XXXX 1 [2-9]XX [2-9]XX [2-9]XX

 P: 101 TRANSIT-NETWORK-ESCAPE

 P: XXXX TRANSIT-NETWORK

 P: 1 LONG-DISTANCE-DIRECT-DIAL

 P: [2-9]XX AREA-CODE

 P: [2-9]XX OFFICE-CODE

 P: XXXX SUBSCRIBER

 T: N

Each route pattern in a numbering plan is represented as several lines of text followed by a blank line. The first character on each line of text defines one of five types of records:

• # A line beginning with # is treated as a comment line. The call routing component ignores these lines when expanding an @ wildcard.
• P This type of line is by far the most important. In this line, you describe a substring for a particular route pattern. This type of line has one mandatory argument and an optional argument. The first argument is a description of the substring itself, in pattern notation (see the section "Route Patterns and Route Filters"). The second argument, if present, describes the tag name you want to associate with this substring. The tag name can be anything you want, though it can contain only alphabetic characters and hyphens. Most route patterns consist of several P lines that together define the entire route pattern.
• T A line beginning with T: specifies whether the type of number represents an international number or a national number. When followed by an N, the route pattern is considered national; when followed by an I, it is considered international. Digital signaling interfaces such as PRI require CallManager to characterize a dialed number when it offers a call to the PSTN for the call to route correctly. When you set the Called Party IE Number Type option to Cisco CallManager on any digital gateway configuration page, you tell CallManager to set up the called number based on this value in the numbering plan file.
• U A line beginning with U: specifies that a route pattern is urgent. When a route pattern is urgent, if the user dials a string that matches the route pattern, all interdigit timing is circumvented. When followed by a Y (for yes), the route pattern is considered urgent; when followed by an N or if the line is not present at all, it is considered normal. The NANP file characterizes the information and emergency services as urgent route patterns so that you do not accidentally hamper access to emergency services by creating an extension such as 9110.
• W A line beginning with W: specifies associated information. This line is not currently used, but it should be used for setup of the network-specific facilities information element in ISDN. CallManager associates any information following the tag with the route pattern, and the destination device can use this information to make decisions. In the case of the current NANP file, operator calls are followed with a W: line that specifies OP or OP/P so that PRI code can configure the outbound called number information as an operator call. CallManager currently ignores this line.

International Dial Plans

Cisco makes dial plans for other countries available at Cisco.com (http://www.cisco.com/pcgibin/tablebuild.pl/IDP). Users with a Cisco Service Agreement can access these dial plans and install them on CallManager. Following the link grants you access to a tool from which you can download an installer (.exe) for currently supported dial plan files.

Currently, Cisco provides dial plans for Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Australia, Russia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Belgium, and Greece.