As any business owner stuck with cartons of obsolete business cards and letterhead can attest, “portability”-at least in terms of a phone number-can be a real headache. That’s because changing service from one local phone carrier to another also involves the added hassle and expense of changing phone numbers.
But Evolving Systems Inc., an Englewood, Colo.-based company, thinks it has figured out a way to let customers take their numbers with them when the change carriers. The company recently ported a telephone number between two carrier-level software systems. The breakthrough, the company believes, ultimately will pave the way for wireless consumers to keep their existing numbers when switching between local carriers. Meanwhile, a number of local wireless carriers reportedly are already embracing portability as an additional service in their marketing plans.
Evolving Systems accomplished the number porting during internal testing of its local-number portability (LNP) software systems-OrderPath and NumberManager-when company personnel linked the two software applications to the Number Portability Administration Center’s Service Management System.
In order to foster competition between local carriers, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 mandates that number portability be available in all major metropolitan-area markets by the end of 1998. In the United States, the market for local portability software and integration services is estimated at about $250 million during the next three years, with an additional $200 million expected to be generated internationally.
A privately held, 12-year-old company, Evolving Systems’ carrier-level LNP licensed software systems cost from $2 million to $3 million, with additional integration work ranging from $1 million to $7 million. Some service providers also are developing their own Local Service Management Systems to facilitate number portability.
For the past two years, Evolving Systems has been working on its LNP software in tandem with the development of service management systems software to be used in the nation’s yet-to-be-deployed seven regional NPACs.
The Midwest regional NPAC, based in the Chicago area, is scheduled to become operational on Oct. 1. (Lockheed-Martin Information Management Systems will operate four NPACs and Perot Systems will manage three NPACs.)
“Evolving Systems’ ability to successfully `port’ a telephone number represents a historic moment in the telecommunication industry’s ability to communicate with the NPAC and support LNP within their networks,” said Dick Abramson, Evolving Systems’ president and chief executive officer.
The company’s OrderPath software application is a Local Service Order Administration system that communicates directly with the NPAC to initiate the `porting’ of a local telephone number. During tests using OrderPath’s Web-based graphical-user interface, a telephone number was selected from within a range of `portable’ telephone numbers. An order was then initiated to “switch” the number from an incumbent carrier to a new carrier.
The NPAC received the order-called a subscription-from the new carrier and then proceeded to notify both carriers of the change through an automated notification system. Once the incumbent carrier acknowledged the receipt of the new subscription and agreed to the `porting,’ the NPAC sent out a broadcast message to each of the carrier’s Local Service Management Systems.
During the test, each carrier’s NumberManager received an “activate” subscription notice from the NPAC. Each NumberManager then validated data elements, translated routing data and forwarded new routing data to its associated network element management systems.
Once each NumberManager performed its individual functions, both sent notifications to the NPAC of the network provisioning changes. The NPAC then notified each carrier’s OrderPath that the number had been successfully `ported’ and provisioned within the network.
Evolving Systems’ entered the local number portability arena in 1995, subsequently authoring the Illinois Commerce Commission Interoperability Interface Specification between the Regional NPAC and Local Service Order Administration Systems as well as the interoperability interface specifications between the NPAC and Local Service Management Systems, both of which were used to develop OrderPath and NumberManager. The company also authored the LNP functional requirements specification, which outlined the industry’s Regional Service Management System requirements and led to Evolving Systems development of the regional-level NPAC/SMS system.
“None of the existing systems used today to perform service order entry and service management functions are able to successfully communicate with the NPAC,” Abramson said. “[We have] shown that there is an efficient process for `porting’ telephone numbers between service providers that works-and will work well within the mandated deadline for LNP implementation.”
