Somos' Petition Seeking Numbering Changes Is Premature, Commenters Agree
Somos got pushback in comments posted last week on its September petition asking the FCC to make changes to how phone numbers are assigned and move away from its legacy systems to an IP world. The petition came as the agency shut down the North American Numbering Council (see 2506240074).
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Among the recommended changes (see 2509260016), Somos said the FCC should transition to using an IP routing guide and retire the local exchange routing guide. It also called for the agency to consolidate number assignment functions that are currently split between the North American Numbering Plan Administrator, which recently took responsibility for administering number pooling, and the Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA).
In comments posted in docket RM-12012, AT&T said it’s premature to consider either proposal while technical issues of network modernization and IP interconnection are still under consideration. The carrier noted that the FCC has pending rulemakings on both issues.
AT&T added that the communications industry, working with the commission, has the primary responsibility for handling those technical issues and is working through industry organizations and committees “to accomplish that goal." Doing so will take time, but how the issues are resolved “will likely influence (and could determine) whether and how number administration and routing regimes should be changed in a new network paradigm.”
The Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions agreed that the changes Somos seeks are premature, given that IP transition issues remain pending before the FCC. The IP transition and any numbering system updates shouldn’t be undertaken at the same time and “should be done in a way that minimizes industry-wide changes, so that service providers can focus” on the transition, the group said. Redesigning the systems is “unnecessary and would only serve to distract and delay the Commission’s efforts to accelerate the transition of communications networks to all-IP technology.”
Iconectiv, which provides local number portability solutions, likewise called Somos’ proposals “disruptive and counterproductive.” The core problem facing the industry is the IP transition, the company said. Routing and numbering administration systems are, “at most, secondary matters and any changes should remain industry-led efforts within recognized standards bodies, rather than subjects of centralized redesign lacking broad industry input and agreed-to requirements.”
The North American Portability Management, which manages the LNPA, also opposed the changes. Consolidating the LNPA under a single government contract and getting rid of the current multi-stakeholder governance model “would unnecessarily dismantle a highly effective governance framework that has delivered reliable, neutral, and cost-disciplined number portability for more than two decades,” it said. The current model is “effective and adaptable” and provides “representative, transparent oversight” while maintaining FCC accountability.
But Baltimore-Washington Telephone, a competitive local exchange carrier, argued that Somos' request for a rulemaking is “timely and appropriate.” The rulemaking should address the “outdated” routing infrastructure focused on time-division multiplexing “and the ways in which it is embedded within the nation’s public switched telephone network.”