Meeting the LNP Mandate
Enabling local number portability – mandated by the Federal Communications Commission – is a basic aspect of doing business of every carrier in the local exchange market. Implementing local number portability requires – service providers to exchange data with regional Number Portability Administrator Centers (NPACs) each time a customers changes providers. For a competitive local exchange carrier, the LNP process involves informing the regional NPAC that the CLEC is the new service provider and specifying the date on which a customer’s number will be ported. There are seven NPACs in the United States and one in Canada supporting number portability.
Bond with the LNP leader
DSET Corporation has been instrumental in launching LNP on the national level and in enabling providers to meet the FCC’s portability mandate. DSET application development tools were employed to build the service management system in production at each NPAC. Every service provider involved used DSET application development tools to build their service management systems for the first trial implementation of LNP in the Midwest Region in 1997. Virtually all LNP applications built by other vendors have been developed using DSET tools and services.
Partnering with Lockheed Martin (now Neustar Inc.), the first national NPAC administrator, DSET created the nation’s only interoperability test center to ensure –every vendor’s systems meet the requirements for supporting number portability.
