FCC number portability rules changes adopted in mid-July are aimed at creating a nationwide number portability system.
Number portability enables subscribers to keep their numbers when changing carriers and/or locations. Currently, full portability is not possible. To make this a reality, the FCC is changing rules that were designed in an earlier era customized to discreet local and long-distance services. Today’s market features integrated carriers that offer both types of service.
FCC Number Portability Rules Changes
The FCC number portability rules changes include:
- Elimination of the last vestiges of the “dialing parity” rule. This rule was intended to ensure that consumers could choose and access a stand-alone long-distance provider without dialing extra digits. However, stand-alone long-distance service is disappearing with the rise of all-distance plans, VoIP and wireless, and the FCC in 2015 eliminated the rule for most local providers. Today’s action eliminates the rules for competitive providers, and for stand-alone services grandfathered in 2015.
- Providing flexibility in call routing by easing the “N-1” rule that currently requires the next-to-last carrier in a call – typically the long-distance provider – to query the number portability database. The modification allows other carriers in the chain to query the database. This will open new opportunities for call routing as the industry prepares for nationwide number portability.
Last month, the FCC’s federal advisory committee on numbering — North American Numbering Council (NANC) — approved a report on national number portability implementation. On July 3, the FCC asked NANC to continue providing input on the costs, benefits and technical requirements on two possible nationwide number portability mechanisms and on the next steps the FCC and industry should take to achieve this goal.