USA-Canada Check on lead load

Bad phone numbers are a tax on every campaign. They waste channels, drag down your Contact rate, and pad your report with junk. When you import with the VICIdial Lead loader, the USA-Canada check can screen out numbers that cannot physically exist in the North American dial plan, so a malformed row never becomes a callable Lead. It is off by default, so you have to switch it on.

Three levels of validation

• PREFIX check — makes sure the fourth digit of the number is not a 0 or a 1, which a valid North American local prefix never is.
• AREACODE check — confirms the first three digits are a real North American area code, not a made-up one.
• NANPA PREFIX check — uses the optional NANPA database to validate both the area code and the three-digit prefix together. This database is not included by default.

The first two levels are pure arithmetic on the digits and cost you nothing to run. The NANPA level is the strictest because it checks the real published assignment of prefixes, but it needs the extra data set loaded on your server first.

It helps to picture what the rules actually reject. A fourth digit of 0 or 1 cannot start a valid local exchange in North America, so those numbers are typos or padding nearly every time. An area code that was never assigned is just as impossible, and the AREACODE check knows the full set of live ones. The NANPA layer goes a step further by confirming that a specific exchange inside a real area code is in service, which catches the subtler cases where the area code is fine but the prefix has never been handed out. Each level you turn on trades a little extra strictness for a slightly tighter list.

How the check runs at load

flowchart TD
  A[Phone number] --> B{4th digit 0 or 1?}
  B -->|Yes| R[Reject]
  B -->|No| C{Valid area code?}
  C -->|No| R
  C -->|Yes| D{NANPA enabled?}
  D -->|No| K[Keep lead]
  D -->|Yes| E{Prefix in NANPA?}
  E -->|No| R
  E -->|Yes| K

Why screen at load, not at dial

Catching a bad number at import is much cheaper than discovering it on the dialer. An impossible number burns a channel, returns a fast busy or congestion, and then sits in your list as a dead record that recycling logic keeps trying. Filtering it out up front keeps your dialable count meaningful and your stats clean. It also keeps your carrier happier, since you are not throwing obviously invalid traffic at the network.

There is a reporting benefit too. When invalid numbers never enter the list, the connect and answer figures you look at later describe real dialing, not a mix of real calls and numbers that could never have rung. That makes it far easier to judge whether a data source is any good, because you are comparing lists on the same clean footing instead of guessing how much junk each one carried. Over a few campaigns that clarity is what tells you which vendors to keep buying from.

This check pairs naturally with duplicate checking and DNC scrubbing at load time. To see how all the list pieces fit, read the VICIdial lists and leads guide, and for the container these records live in, the what is a VICIdial list post is a quick read.

Good data in means good results out. VICIfast provisions a hardened VICIdial server in under 40 seconds so you can load and validate from your first hour. View VICIfast pricing to begin.