Internet DRAFT - draft-e164-gstn-npusa-foster
draft-e164-gstn-npusa-foster
Internet Draft Document: Mark Foster
<draft-e164-gstn-npusa-foster-00.txt> Tom McGarry
Category: Informational James Yu
Expires in six months NeuStar, Inc.
November 17, 2000
Number Portability in the United States
Status of this Memo
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1. Abstract
This document provides a historical as well as practical overview of the
implementation of Number Portability in the United States. There are various
regulatory constraints that establish relevant parameters for NP implementation,
most of which are not network technology specific. Though this document
discusses the implementation of NP in the United States it is offered as
relevant for discussions in numerous areas of IP telephony work-in-progress at
IETF.
2.0 Background
The North American telecommunications industry began to seriously investigate
methods of providing local number portability (LNP) in late 1994. On July 13,
1995, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S. issued a Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) FCC Docket Number 95-116 that opened discussion on NP
and sought comments on a wide variety of policy and technical issues related to
NP.
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In 1995 and 1996 several state regulatory bodies, notably the Illinois Commerce
Commission (ICC), began the process of officially selecting the architecture to
be used for NP in their respective states. After considerable discussion and
deliberation, the "Location Routing Number (LRN)" scheme was selected by
Illinois, and other states. The switching and signaling requirements for number
portability developed in the Illinois LNP workshop under the auspices of the ICC
became the basis of the de facto North American industry standards [ICC]. The
activities on number portability in the North America also interacted with
activities in many other parts of world.
2.2 Performance/Legal/Regulatory Requirements
After substantial industry discussion and debate, and extensive comments filed
with the FCC, the FCC and the U.S. telecommunications industry set the following
minimum performance criteria for LNP:
1. Support existing network services, features and capabilities.
2. Efficiently use numbering resources.
3. Not require end users to change their telecommunication numbers.
4. Not require telecommunications carrier to rely on databases, other network
facilities, or services provided by other telecommunications carriers in order
to route calls to proper termination point.
5. Not result in unreasonable degradation in service quality or network
reliability when implemented.
6. Not result in unreasonable degradation of service quality or network
reliability when customers switch carriers.
7. Not result in a carrier having a proprietary interest.
8. Be able to accommodate location and service portability in the future.
9. Have no significant adverse impact outside areas where number portability is
deployed.
In July 1996, the FCC issued the First Report and Order on LNP under 95-116,
calling for the deployment of LNP across the U.S. starting in 1997. The FCC did
not mandate any specific implementation of LNP in the U.S., but it did call upon
the industry to develop and endorse a national standard that would ensure
interoperability with all industry segments, including wireless. While
providing overall guidelines and requirements for LNP, it did explicitly state
that the LRN method met these requirements, whereas alternate proposals (such as
QoR) did not.
A core requirement was that a carrier who is serving ported numbers need not be
reliant on any other carrier (especially the donor network) for completing
calls, whether for call transport/routing or for signaling. That's not to say
that a carrier couldn't voluntarily opt to use another carrier or the donor
network for queries or call routing. But the key is voluntarily. This
requirement was imposed on all NP implementations in the U.S. for common carrier
telephony services regardless of the network technology employed.
Similar requirements were adopted by the Canadian Radio and Television
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Commission (CRTC), the equivalent of the FCC in Canada, and in a number of
regulatory and industry bodies in other countries (e.g., Belgium, Denmark,
Spain, and Switzerland) which resulted in the use of centralized NPDBs to
support number portability.
In the U.S. and Canada, the ACQ scheme was adopted because it does not rely on
the donor network for call routing (see requirements numbers 4 and 7) and it can
accommodate location and service portability in the future.
In the U.S. and Canada, there is also the "N-1" guideline that recommends that
the network next to the destination network perform the NPDB query if the NPDB
query has not been done or the routing information is not available (e.g., due
to signaling interworking). This is to prevent the call from being re-routed at
the donor network. In the U.S., the wireline carriers are required to support
NP in certain service areas in phases. The wireless carriers' support of NP has
been postponed until November 2002.
3. NP Administration Process in the North America
3.1 Business Model
Figure B.1 shows the NP business model that was adopted in the U.S. and Canada.
The U.S. is divided into seven regions coinciding with the boundaries of the
original seven Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) regions. This was done to
facilitate the formation of separate contracting and administrative areas
(formed as limited liability companies) for LNP in the U.S. intentionally
coinciding with the original RBOC boundaries, thus enabling each RBOC to
participate singly in each of these areas.
A contractor was selected in open competitive procurements conducted by the
industry to be the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) provider for
each of the seven NPAC regions (Midwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southwest,
Southeast, Western, and West Coast) in the U.S. The same thing happened in
Canada as well. Each Limited Liability Corp. (LLC) in the seven U.S. regions
and Canadian Consortium maintain largely identical contracts with the selected
contractor(s) covering each region.
The FCC and North American Numbering Council (NANC) oversee the technical and
operational standards and cost recovery rulemakings.
Each LLC signed a master contract with the selected NPAC that set the prices and
terms and provided the form of User Agreement for the selected NPAC to sign with
each individual NPAC user. NPAC users are any bona fide entity that either
ports numbers or subscribes to updates to the NPDB provided by the NPAC.
Before becoming a NPAC user, a Customer must first sign and return a Non-
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Disclosure Agreement before any other documentation can be sent. Therefore
after the NPAC receives a signed Non-Disclosure Agreement the Customer can now
receive the Master Agreement, User Agreement, and Interconnect Plan. The Master
Agreement is the top-level overall contract.
+--------+ +----------+
| FCC |------------>| State |
| NANC |<---+ +--->| PUCs |
+--------+ | | +----------+
| |
v v (Master
+--------------+ Agreement) +----------+
| Regional LLC |<----------->| NPAC |
| Contract | | |
| Administrator| +----------+
+--------------+ ^
^ |
| |
v |
+----------+ |
| NPAC |<------------------+
| Users | (One User Agreement per User)
+----------+
Figure B.1 - NP Administration Business Model in the U.S.
The User Agreements come under the Master Agreements and must be signed by the
individual Customers who wish to use NPAC services. If a Customer plans on
operating in more than one region, the Customer must sign a separate User
Agreement for each of the regions where operations will take place.
The Interconnect Plan is another NPAC document that the Customer must sign and
return. This document provides an overview of the customer interconnection to
the NPAC.
The new customer process is shown below.
- Customer contacts Chicago NPAC (Help Desk) to request information.
- Introduction Package (Application, Non-Disclosure Agreement) sent to
customer.
- Customer signs and returns Non-disclosure Agreement.
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- Master Agreement, User Agreement and Interconnect Plan sent to Customer.
- Customer signs and returns User Agreement.
- Customer signs and returns Interconnect Plan.
- Customer data entered.
3.2 NPAC Architecture
Figure B.2 shows the architecture for number portability administration in the
U.S. and Canada.
(Carrier Facilities) : (NPAC Facilities)
+---------+ :
| SOA | :
| |-------------------+
+---------+ : |
: |
: +----------+
: | NPAC/SMS |
: | |
: +----------+
: |
+---------+ +---------+ : |
| NPDB |---------| LSMS |-------------------+
|(e.g.SCP)| | | :
+---------+ +---------+ :
:
Figure B.2 - NPAC Architecture.
The interface between the Service Order Administration (SOA) and the NPAC/SMS is
for provisioning ported end-user data including the support of the creation,
cancellation, retrieval and update of subscription, service provider, and
network information. The SOAs are operated by the local exchange carriers.
The interface between the Local Service Management System (LSMS) and the
NPAC/SMS is mainly used for downloading ported number information from the
NPAC/SMS to the LSMS. The LSMS then updates the NPDB. A local exchange carrier
may operate the LSMS if it decides to deploy an NPDB itself. A service bureau
can also operate the LSMS to provision several LECs' NPDBs or operate the LSMS
and the NPDB for the operators (e.g., LECs or long distance carriers) to query.
The interface between the LSMS and the NPDB is up to the entities that operate
them.
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The functional requirement specification developed under the auspices of the
North American Numbering Council (NANC) defines the external functionality of
the NPAC SMS [FRS]. The interfaces between the NPAC/SMS and the SOA or LSMS use
standards-based communications and security technologies and are made public
[IIS]. Please note that only the information about the ported numbers is stored
at the NPAC databases and the NPDBs at present.
3.3 NPAC SMS Functions
This section provides a list of the NPAC SMS functions. Please see [FRS] for
details.
- Provisioning Service: For the new service provider to notify the NPAC SMS of a
provision request for a ported number and to send an activation notice to
activate the update from the NPAC SMS to the LSMS.
- Disconnect Service: For handling disconnection of the telephony service for a
ported number.
- Repair Service: For resolving problems detected either by a Service Provider
or by a customer contacting a Service Provider.
- Conflict Resolution: For resolving a conflict when there is disagreement
between the old and new Service Providers as to who will be providing service
for the telephone number (TN). Please note that the processes for obtaining
authorization from the customer to port a number are defined by the Service
Providers. The NPAC is not involved in obtaining or verifying customer approval
to port a telephone number.
- Disaster Recovery and Backup: For having a backup facility and the disaster
recovery procedures in place for planned and unplanned downtime at the primary
facility.
- Order Cancellation: For the new Service Provider to cancel a previously
submitted but not activated provision request.
- Audit Request: For troubleshooting customer problems and also as a maintenance
process to ensure data integrity across the entire NP network.
- Report Request: For supporting report generation for pre-defined and ad-hoc
reports.
- Data Management: For managing network, Service Provider, and customer
subscription data. The network data defines the configuration of the NP service
and network and includes such data as: participating Service Providers, NPA-NXXs
that are portable, and LRNs associated with each Service Provider. The Service
Provider data indicates who the NP Service Providers are and includes location,
contact name, security, routing, and network interface information. The
subscription data indicates how local number portability should operate to meet
subscribers' needs.
- NPA-NXX Split Processing: For the administration of the information for NPA
split (the current NPA, the new NPA, and the affected NXXs) plus the beginning
and end date of the permissive dialing period.
- Business Support: For supporting service providers that have different needs
for business hours and days available for porting.
- Notification Recovery: For allowing a Service Provider to capture, via a
recovery process, all notifications that were missed during a downtime period
for the Service Provider.
3.4 Cost Recovery
In the FCC's Third Report and Order, adopted May 5, 1998, released May 12, 1998
and published in the Federal Registry July 29, 1998 the Commission implemented
section 251(e)(2) with regards to the costs of providing long-term number
portability. Section 251(e)(2) of the Communications Act of 1934 (1934 Act), as
amended requires that "the cost of establishing telecommunications numbering
administration arrangements and number portability shall be borne by all
telecommunications carriers on a competitively neutral basis as determined by
the Commission."
The costs can be categorized below.
- Share costs incurred by industry as a whole for the NPACs:
* Non-recurring costs, e.g., administrator costs to implement database
hardware and software.
* Recurring costs, e.g., administrator costs to administer the databases.
* Costs incurred by administrators to upload and download data to and from
databases. Shared costs of each regional database distributed among
telecommunications carriers with revenue derived from providing
telecommunications service in the area served by the database, in proportion to
carrier's share of revenue for the region. Carriers without such revenue
assessed $100 per year.
- Carrier-specific costs incurred by each carrier that directly relates to
providing NP, e.g., querying calls, porting telephone numbers between carriers.
* Dedicated costs, e.g., number portability software, NPDBs and STPs
reserved exclusively for NP.
* Joint costs, e.g., software generics, switch hardware, Operation Support
System (OSS), SS7 or AIN upgrade, incremental to providing NP. Carriers may
include incremental overhead incurred specifically in providing NP.
Incumbent LECs may recover costs directly related to providing NP through
federally tariffed charges that can be query-service charges, prearranged and
default, and monthly end-user charges. For example, the end-users in the
metropolitan D.C. area pay 23 cents per month for NP surcharge. Carriers, other
than incumbent LECs, may recover costs in any manner consistent with state and
federal laws and regulations.
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3. References
[IIS] NeuStar (formerly Lockheed Martin IMS Corporation), prepared for the North
American Numbering Council (NANC),"NPAC SMS interoperable Interface
Specification, Version 2.0.2," September 1, 1999.
[FRS] NANC, "Functional Requirements Specification - NPAC SMS, Version 2.0.2,"
September 1, 1999.
4. Author's Addresses
Mark D. Foster
NeuStar, Inc.
1120 Vermont Avenue, NW,
Suite 550
Washington, D.C. 20005
United States
Phone: +1-202-533-2800
Fax: +1-202-533-2975
Email: mark.foster@neustar.com
Tom McGarry
NeuStar, Inc.
1120 Vermont Avenue, NW,
Suite 550
Washington, D.C. 20005
United States
Phone: +1-202-533-2810
Fax: +1-202-533-2975
James Yu
NeuStar, Inc.
1120 Vermont Avenue, NW,
Suite 550
Washington, D.C. 20005
United States
Phone: +1-202-533-2814
Fax: +1-202-533-2975
Email: james.yu@neustar.com
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