Iconectiv Confident Heading Into First LNPA Regional Cutover; Some Watch With Caution
New local number portability administrator iconectiv appeared confident its systems would work as it prepared for its initial regional takeover of operations from Neustar. Many stakeholders were quiet and some parties were wary, particularly given disagreement over a plan for a contingency rollback to the incumbent. If there's a breakdown, Ericsson-owned iconectiv believes the FCC can require Neustar to restart its number-porting operations over its existing systems until there's a fix, something the incumbent disputes. Neustar said it's working for a smooth handoff.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The first cutover is to take place Sunday in the Southeast, one of seven regions in the LNPA transition. Affected are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee and the U.S. Virgin Islands. "States have been following this closely," NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay told us. "It's curious they started with the region with the most porting activity."
North American Portability Management has pushed a manual contingency rollback plan, while Neustar prefers an automated approach. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai unsuccessfully demanded NAPM, its transition oversight manager PwC, iconectiv and Neustar reach agreement on a rollback plan by Feb. 16 (see 1802020070 and 1802200051).
The parties were back in "active" talks on a contingency rollback, said a PwC official Wednesday (see 1804040041). The major players wouldn't comment Friday. Neustar says the FCC cannot lawfully require it to take number-porting orders without an agreement, referring us to its recent filing in docket 09-109 (see 1803280038). The agency didn't comment.
The focus has been on the worst-case scenario, a "vanishingly small" possibility, said iconectiv counsel John Nakahata of Harris Wiltshire. "This thing has been tested up and down, including stress tested." Some testing was done in parallel, rather than sequentially, saving time, said the lawyer. If there is delay in number-porting operations, calls would still "go through just like they do when the NPAC shuts down for maintenance every Saturday night to Sunday morning," he said, citing "no relationship to 911 calling." Even in the worst case, "I’m 100 percent confident the FCC has the legal ability to tell Neustar, its designated local number portability administrator that’s getting paid $1.4 million a day, to turn its system back on," he told us. "I’d be very confident litigating that."
"Neustar has been working toward a smooth and successful cutover that does not impact consumers," it emailed. "Neustar is committed to fulfilling its obligations related to the cutover. ... We hope that the process does not lead to any interruption of service for consumers, and are preparing for all possible outcomes." Asked about its daily revenue, Neustar referred us to its 2016 SEC filing citing about $496 million in annual fixed revenue ($1.36 million daily) from its number portability administration center (NPAC) operations.
USTelecom says telecom providers have much incentive to make the shift work. "The industry has the biggest stake in a successful transition for expense reasons and to have satisfied customers," Vice President Lynn Follansbee told us. "We support the transition to a new administrator. We look forward to the transition going well, this weekend and going forward until its completed.”
Some take a wait-and-see approach or have concerns about no rollback deal. "Any project of this complexity should not go forward without a fully vetted and tested rollback plan. Going forward without one is inherently risky," emailed Eckert Seamans attorney James Falvey, representing the LNP Alliance of small providers. "We hope the Transition goes well for the sake of end users and carriers alike but we’ll see what happens in the coming week. We won’t know for sure whether the Transition has been successful for at least two or three days after the initiation of the Transition. Providers have been instructed to hold off on major transactions so the system will not be performing under full load until that time."
“Chairman Pai and the FCC now own this transition, for better or for worse," emailed Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America's Open Technology Institute. "For over two years the Wireline Bureau has written a blank check to Ericsson and the biggest carriers that control the NAPM, ignoring proposals and pleas for effective oversight and testing that adequately protects consumers and small, rural carriers. Despite all the false starts and delays, the FCC maintains utmost faith in Ericsson, so let’s hope they get it right.”
"It could all be Y2K-ish, but why mess with Murphy's Law?" emailed Mark Iannuzzi, president of TelNet WorldWide and a board member of the Cloud Communications Alliance. "There are fundamental truths in life like ‘people will make mistakes and technology will fail.’ ... The process has not been transparent [with] no fall back. I think those aspects are ethical and necessary. So my concern is that these ethics are not being taken seriously. Very disappointing and unnecessary."