As the use of wireless devices becomes more popular and consumers replace their landlines with mobile phones, tracking ported numbers and preventing third-party billing fraud become more of a challenge. To that end, NeuStar Inc., the company contracted by the FCC to oversee number portability administration for wireline and wireless carriers in North America, wants to determine its next steps relative to the Line Information Database, or LIDB (pronounced “lid-bee”). Specifically, NeuStar is suggesting that wireless carriers should be required to populate the LIDB as do wireline providers. That, the company says, would help foil billing schemes likely to become rampant thanks to local number portability.
There are approximately 14 LIDBs around the country, all maintained by separate carriers. But because every North American service provider’s network connects, either directly or indirectly, to NeuStar’s clearinghouse, and nearly every phone call routes through the company’s system, NeuStar has an express interest in pushing for the databases also to be populated with wireless information. NeuStar says it is most concerned about thwarting the types of scams that flourished about 10 years ago, when, for example, an inmate could make collect calls from a prison and carriers ate the charges because they could not track the third-party billing. Now when someone tries to use a calling card or make a collect call, wireline carriers reference LIDBs to see if a number is blocked due to bad payment history, whether the person being called has barred collect-calling capability and whether a calling card is legit. The advent of LNP and mass exodus from wireline to wireless phones greatly increases the likelihood of fraud, says Dave O’Connor, an account manager for NeuStar who works with numbering issues. Unless a wireless carrier has populated the LIDB, there is no way to ensure that the person placing a collect call or using a calling card does not have any LIDB blocks. Therein lies the problem. If someone figures out how to pass through third-party charges from a former wireline number via a wireless phone that is no longer tracked in a LIDB, carriers eat the costs.
LIDB Defined Line Information Database, or LIDB, is a public database used to verify call connectivity and provide certain premise information. It contains subscriber information, such as a service profile, name and address, and credit card validation information.
While NeuStar is under contract with the FCC, its revenue comes from the telecom industry, not the government. For that reason, the FCC has no intention of regulating database concerns, a spokesman for the federal agency tells xchange. The issue is not even on the FCC’s radar, he adds. That leaves standards-setting and compliance enforcement to the industry. But without government backing and the threat of fines, such an effort would carry little weight, insiders agree. One wireless carrier further tells xchange it likely would refuse to take part in such an effort — as it did when there was talk of creating a wireless directory — because of the potential for compromising customers’ privacy. Repeated calls and e-mails for comment to CTIA - The Wireless Association were not returned.
To be sure, NeuStar does make money every time someone changes a phone number, and at millions of transactions per month, the profit adds up quickly. This aspect of whether to require wireless carriers to populate the LIDB causes some in the industry to suspect NeuStar’s motives. But O’Connor says NeuStar just wants to approach wireline and wireless convergence “proactively, not reactively” and do its part to run its databases efficiently. “The industry puts weight on our shoulders to make sure all this stuff runs smoothly,” he says, adding that some wireless carriers do populate the LIDBs, but he cannot name them due to confidentiality agreements.
Greg Smith, president and CEO of Accudata Technologies Inc., a storage company that validates callers’ information, believes NeuStar has the industry’s best interest in mind, he says. “Their position is solid in that it seems funny for us to have hundreds of millions of numbers that are good, valid numbers ... but there’s this huge segment of wireless numbers that is just missing,” he muses. Besides, he adds, there is additional profit to be had if carriers and database administrators decided to share revenue from collect calls, not just numbering queries.
There are approximately 14 LIDBs around the country, all maintained by separate carriers. But because every North American service provider’s network connects, either directly or indirectly, to NeuStar’s clearinghouse, and nearly every phone call routes through the company’s system, NeuStar has an express interest in pushing for the databases also to be populated with wireless information. NeuStar says it is most concerned about thwarting the types of scams that flourished about 10 years ago, when, for example, an inmate could make collect calls from a prison and carriers ate the charges because they could not track the third-party billing. Now when someone tries to use a calling card or make a collect call, wireline carriers reference LIDBs to see if a number is blocked due to bad payment history, whether the person being called has barred collect-calling capability and whether a calling card is legit. The advent of LNP and mass exodus from wireline to wireless phones greatly increases the likelihood of fraud, says Dave O’Connor, an account manager for NeuStar who works with numbering issues. Unless a wireless carrier has populated the LIDB, there is no way to ensure that the person placing a collect call or using a calling card does not have any LIDB blocks. Therein lies the problem. If someone figures out how to pass through third-party charges from a former wireline number via a wireless phone that is no longer tracked in a LIDB, carriers eat the costs.
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