Local Number Portability : What Does It Mean?

Slowly, but surely, local resale is being implemented throughout the country. One of the hurdles yet to be cleared is number portability. A local service switch now means customers must either use call forwarding or change their telephone numbers--hardly an ideal situation, especially for business customers.

Local number portability (LNP), however, offers a solution by allowing the consumer to keep his existing number when he changes providers.

The need for number portability was recognized as a competitive issue in the early 1980s, when a demand for 800 number portability first arose. Today, local number portability is a mandate whose deadline is at hand.

LNP Implementation Schedule
Phase I cities to be implemented Oct. 1 through March 31, 1998, include:
Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta and Minneapolis

Phase II cities to be implemented Jan. 1 through May 15, 1998, include:
Washington, Detroit, Boston, Dallas, San Diego, St. Louis, Phoenix, Baltimore,
Cleveland, Seattle, Cincinnati, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, Orlando and Riverside, Calif.

The Poll

A Gallup Poll commissioned by MCI found that 80 percent of Maryland business customers say retention of their companies' telephone numbers is very important, and 90 percent would be unlikely to switch if it meant a number change. As well, 75 percent of residential customers would be unlikely to switch numbers. Woody Traylor, MCI's director of local numbering, says that if a local competitor can offer a 12 percent discount on local services and number portability, it has a 32 percent market opportunity for those customers. Without number portability, that opportunity drops to 21 percent. In a $90 billion market, that equates to a $9 billion difference.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that local number portability will be implemented in five phases. The phases are comprised of the nation's top 100 municipal statistical areas (MSAs). Between October 1997 and December 1998, portability must be available in all 100 cities. Local exchange carriers (LECs) must begin deployment in smaller cities within six months of a specific request by another telecommunications carrier. Wireless carriers such as cellular, broadband PCS and specialized mobile radio carriers must have access to a number portability database by Dec. 31, 1998, and have long-term number portability by June 30, 1999.

In addition to allowing movement of numbers between vendors, LNP also will allow movement of numbers across geographies and between such types of services as Centrex and ISDN.

Federal and State Prerogative

Although it sometimes is difficult to ascertain who or which agency is in charge of portability, the FCC has said it should take a leadership role in developing a national LNP policy. At the same time, some state regulators have taken a key role in its development. Since a few key states are ahead of the FCC in the process, many of the FCC's decisions are based on what the states already have decided. The FCC considers network reliability to be the major issue in the implementation of portability, as illustrated when it ruled the query on release model for porting numbers was not acceptable because ported numbers would experience longer post-dial delay than non-ported numbers.

As implementation draws near, many in the industry are concerned that the FCC has yet to address critical cost-allocation issues. The new players say companies should pay for LNP on a proportionate basis. But the incumbents believe they should not have to underwrite such a large portion of the expense since they did not create the need for number portability. However, LECs have much to gain by their participation, because LNP is one of the FCC's checklist requirements for LEC entry into long distance.

Key Committees

Despite approaching deadlines, issues remain undecided as various entities attempt to iron out the wrinkles. Key decisions are being reached in the following committees:

NANC is the FCC advisory board on LNP. The NANC was formulated to "ensure that number administration is impartial and pro-competitive while continuing to maintain and foster an integrated approach to number administration throughout North America." The committee includes members from every sector of the telecom industry as well as members representing North American Number Plan (NANP) member countries, the states and consumers.

Much of NANC's work is done in workgroups and task forces. The Local Number Portability Administration (LNPA) Working Group has task forces involved in designing and planning LNP in addition to a technical and operational requirements task force. The NANPA Working Group is focused on selecting a neutral third-party North American Number Administrator.

Although a neutral third-party organization is necessary to administer the porting of numbers, a neutral, legal entity to select and manage this third party was needed first. Work at the state level established seven LLCs that mirror the geographies of the original regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs). These LLCs, already uniform in size by number of access lines, used previously formed associations to allow public utility commissions (PUCs) to deal jointly with the RBOCs.

Although membership requirements vary regionally, a company seeking membership in an LLC must:

In all cases, except the Mid-Atlantic LLC, the RBOC is a member of the LLC. Bell Atlantic chose not to be a member, opposing the LLCs' one company, one vote policy. This has put the LLC in the difficult position of operating without Bell Atlantic's input. As a result, the Mid-Atlantic LLC's legal costs are the highest of all the LLCs.

Besides these new groups, industry committees that have been in operation since divestiture are involved in LNP as it relates to their charters. Some of these include the Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF), the Carrier Liaison Committee (CLC) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Architecture

Rather than selecting a specific architecture, the FCC established performance criteria that the LECs' long-term plans must meet. Some of those include:

The FCC determined that location routing number (LRN) is the one method that meets that criteria, so the industry is moving ahead with the LRN model, even though some players do not support that choice.

The first field test of LRN took place in Chicago between July and September. Although the summary work still is being completed, the test was considered very successful, according to Traylor. The only problems were due to human error, primarily in data input. To respond to those issues, audits have been added to the process. The Chicago trial reassured the committees and service providers involved that the process does work.

The LRN Solution

Terminating calls after local porting of numbers is complex and has required enormous planning and expense on the part of the service providers. The Illinois Commerce Commission in 1995 reviewed four options for the architecture of LNP and chose AT&T's LRN solution.

When a customer decides to move his local service to a new provider--a certified facilities-based provider--the service order is entered into the new provider's service order system (SOA).

SOAs were designed to interface with legacy systems, ordering systems--primarily of the Bell companies--that have been in place for years. Because almost every ported number will begin from a Bell System company, SOAs were necessary to start the porting process. SOAs produce the firm order confirmation (FOC) that gives all the parties a timeline for the number to be ported and informs the losing carrier that the number will be moved. Information it provides includes the requested date for the move, the phone number and the new service provider.

The order then goes to NPAC, the ultimate source of porting data. The LNPA manages this system of regional databases. LNPA vendors were selected by the LLCs: Four of the regions selected Lockheed, and three selected Perot Systems.

The data on the ported number is then loaded into the service provider's local service management system (LSMS.) The LSMS downloads the needed routing information into the service control points (SCPs) that send the data to the appropriate local switches.

Ten-digit telephone numbers are assigned to respective NPAC regions. As numbers are ported, this information is loaded via the SOA and LSMS to the regional NPAC platform. Because only ported numbers are in the NPAC, the first step when a call is made is to determine whether the number has been ported. If the number contains an NXX that has been opened to portability, a query will be launched. The only time a query is not launched is when the call appears to be an intraswitch call, because the originating and terminating location are the responsibility of the same vendor. Because the NPAC houses the latest routing information from the SOA information, the database will return the LRN and the NPA/NXX of the appropriate service provider switch, and that service provider will terminate the call.

System designers' main concern is whether the system can process large volumes of orders. With local competition, no one really knows how fast the volume will grow or how large a volume can be expected at peak times. New software was delivered by developers last month to expand the system's capabilities, but only time will tell whether large volumes can be handled efficiently and effectively.

Aelea Christofferson is the President of ATL Communications, Alameda, Calif. ATL provides outsourced services for ordering, provisioning and customer service for local and long distance carriers. For more information, call (510) 217-5784.

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