Neustar Moves to Update DC Circuit on Developments in Its LNPA Case
Neustar moved to update a court on events the company said backed its challenge to a March 2015 FCC order that conditionally selected Telcordia (iconectiv) to replace Neustar as the local number portability administrator. Neustar cited the controversy over Telcordia's initial use of foreign nationals on number portability system software coding, documents the FCC released in response to a Communications Daily Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and the commission's July order approving Telcordia's contract terms as administrator, which the LNPA incumbent last week also challenged.
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"These factual developments confirm what Neustar has argued all along: the Commission's selection of Telcordia as the new Administrator was substantively improper, and it resulted from a highly irregular process," said a Neustar supplemental brief (in Pacer) to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Neustar filed a motion (in Pacer) for permission to file the brief that it said was unopposed by the FCC, DOJ and supporting telecom industry intervenors, conditioned on their ability to file their own briefs before Sept. 13 oral argument in the case (Neustar v. FCC, No. 15-1080). The FCC and Telcordia didn't comment Monday.
The FCC told the court in May 2015 that North American Portability Management was scheduled to complete negotiations with Telcordia and submit a contract to the commission for approval by Aug. 26, 2015, said Neustar's brief. It said the NAPM and Telcordia didn't agree on the contract until March 28 this year and it wasn't signed until Aug. 9. "The full reasons for the delay in finalizing a contract with Telcordia remain murky. But at least one explanation has since come to light," Neustar said. It cited controversy aired in an April 28 Washington Post story that Telcordia had employed a Chinese citizen to develop number portability system source code, which followed disclosure of a whistleblower complaint raising a similar allegation, without the nationality cited (see 1604260049). National security concerns reportedly led the FCC to force Telcordia to rewrite the code from scratch, something the agency confirmed separately April 29 (see 1604290056).
The FOIA document release included various emails and an exchange of letters between Wireline Bureau Chief Matt DelNero and Telcordia CEO Richard Jacowleff (see 1607250029). Neustar noted the NAPM alerted the FCC on Oct. 22 of an "issue involving non-U.S. citizens work" on the LNPA system source code, and Telcordia subsequently cited eight non-U.S. citizens and some dual citizens. DelNero's Feb. 4 letter to Telcordia said the 2015 order required all LNPA personnel working on the systems to be U.S. citizens, and FCC staff had expressed "deep concerns" with the company's use of non-U.S. citizens and the timing of that disclosure. The letter also told Telcordia its proposed remedy wasn't good enough and it would have to start the coding work anew with properly vetted U.S. citizens, a condition Jacowleff agreed to in his letter.
Neustar cited the FCC July 25 orders approving the Telcordia/NAPM contract terms and denying a Neustar motion to force Telcordia to show cause why it shouldn't be disqualified from being LNPA because of its "apparent lack of candor" regarding the use of foreign nationals. Neustar said the FCC concluded Telcordia didn't intentionally mislead the commission because it disclosed the problem during contract talks with the NAPM and agency staff. "But Telcordia did not 'disclose [the] problem' to the Commission; it was the NAPM that informed the commission, after discovering Telcordia's use of foreign nationals in October 2015," Neustar said, citing a bureau email included in the FOIA document release. Neustar also favorably cited certain comments made by Commissioners Michael O'Rielly and Ajit Pai in separate statements on the order, and it noted it filed Thursday a petition for review of the July 25 order to "eliminate any doubt" about the court's jurisdiction to review the commission's selection of Telcordia.