A Public Interest Perspective on Local Number Portability

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Executive Summary

Before the Commission finalizes
the selection of a vendor for the Local Number Portability Administrator
(“LNPA”) contract, the Commission should take this opportunity to reconsider
the future role of the number portability system and of the LNPA in relation to
market competition, public safety and the IP technology transition. The functionality
of today’s LNP platform extends well beyond providing routine number porting
services between telecom carriers. It has evolved into a significant component
in the greater ecosystem of telecommunications competition, public safety and
technological evolution. As a result, any changes to the LNPA now will have
broader and evolving public interest implications.

The ability of the LNPA to
impartially operate to serve the public interest is critical. In the Commission’s
LNPA selection proceeding, a number of smaller regional and rural providers
have argued that appointing Telcordia, a subsidiary of Ericsson, as the LNPA
would threaten the industry’s competitive environment. Since consumer switching
(churn) is such a costly and key aspect of industry competition, competitive
neutrality is critical. There are legitimate concerns that Ericsson, a leading
manufacturer of equipment for telecom companies, is closely tied to the largest
carriers and has other conflicts as well.

Smaller rural and regional
carriers have also expressed concerns about the potential increased total costs
they would face from an LNPA transition, and the comparatively fewer resources they
have for such a massive IT transition as small and mid-sized carriers that
disproportionately operate in rural areas where consumer options are already limited.
Potential new entrants could face these same challenges. More generally, the
Commission should address the way the current numbering portability system
disadvantages non-national carriers by failing to port consumers’ numbers
between regions (LATAs) when a regional carrier acquires customers from areas
where it does not operate and own switches. The North American Numbering
Council’s (“NANC”) vendor selection process could have been an opportunity to
correct this number portability disadvantage for smaller carriers, and yet the Request
for Proposal (“RFP”) failed to specify any particular requirements for
supporting nationwide porting.

Other stakeholders express
concern about impacts on technological developments, including the competitive
implications of transitioning to private, non-integrated and possibly
separately-priced registries in the course of the IP transition. Telcordia
seems to have a view that the Number Portability Administration Center (“NPAC”)
can be replaced with third party private electronic numbering (ENUM) registries,
presumably for an additional fee to the carriers, as the TDM-based network
transitions to an IP-based network. However, Neustar appears to have assumed
ENUM functionality will be integrated within the NPAC. There is a legitimate concern that private
ENUM registries, as opposed to public registries such as the NPAC, might lead
to a less competitive telecom sector after the IP transition.

Public safety and law
enforcement agencies have registered a separate set of concerns about losing
current LNPA services they rely on today, while federal agencies have noted
national security concerns about transitioning to a foreign-owned vendor or
utilizing foreign code in the NPAC.

A common thread among most
commenters is that their concerns were not adequately addressed during the RFP
process overseen by the NANC’s Selection Working Group (“SWG”).[1] This paper analyzes these concerns and finds
them credible and potentially having critical policy impacts. The LNPA has also evolved to provide other
value-added services important to competitive carriers and/or public safety
agencies, yet it is not clear which are included in the scope of work for the
next LNPA.

For all of these
reasons, we believe the Commission should review and clarify the future role of
the number portability system and the LNPA through a public notice and comment rulemaking
before finalizing a vendor selection.

Click here to download the full paper (PDF)  

[1] NANC is a federal
advisory committee to the FCC that was charged with working with North American
Portability Management LLC (“NAPM”) to
make a recommendation for the next LNPA contract. NANC, in turn, created a
Selection Working Group (“SWG”) to work with the NAPM on the selection process.
The NAPM, with input from the SWG, created the request for proposal documents
and conducted the initial evaluation process. The NAPM members are all telecom
service providers. NAPM in turn, created a subgroup of the NAPM, the Future of
Number Portability Administration Committee (“FoNPAC”), to carry out the
selection process delegated to the NAPM.