Neustar asks FCC to reopen LNPA bidding process

447 words 12 February 2014

TR's State NewsWire

Neustar, Inc., today asked the FCC to direct North American Portability Management

LLC to seek additional proposals from parties interested in being the local number portability administrator (LNPA) during the next contract term, which begins in July 2015. The North American Numbering Council, which is in charge of the LNPA proposal evaluation process, rejected a previous request from Neustar to allow LNPA contract bidders to submit revised bids. Yesterday, FCC Wireline Competition Bureau Chief Julie Veach asked NANC Chair Betty Ann Kane to submit an evaluation of recent allegations by Neustar and rival bidder Telcordia Technologies, Inc., d/b/a iconectiv, that the LNPA selection process has not been fair (TRDaily, Feb. 11). In a petition for declaratory ruling filed today in Common Carrier docket 95-116 and Wireline Competition docket 09-109, Neustar asked the FCC to amend the LNPA request for proposals "to include input from all industry constituencies" and to "clarify rules governing the LNPA to ensure the selection process proceeds in a transparent and impartial manner." "The Commission should do these things because the existing process for selecting the next LNPA is flawed in its design and implementation," Neustar said. Neustar criticized the NANC's selection criteria for failing "to encompass the scope of services that the LNPA's users have come to expect and to rely upon under the existing contract," for failing "to account for critical transition requirements, whose cost and risk will fall disproportionately upon smaller service providers," for failing "to account for the technological sea change inherent in the Internet Protocol transition," and for failing "to incorporate technical requirements necessary to ensure accessibility, reliable interconnection, consumer protection, and public safety and security in the nation's telecommunications system." Neustar also criticized the selection process for a lack of transparency and for "such defects as the reopening of the deadline for proposals to benefit an offeror that apparently failed to submit its proposal on time and the failure to allow further competitive proposals from all qualified offerors." John Nakahata, a partner in the Washington law firm of Wiltshire & Grannis LLP and counsel to Telcordia, called Neustar's filing "an Olympian effort to change the rules and get a do-over after flubbing its last run. And Neustar can win two ways, because delay would allow it to continue to collect its over-inflated sole source fees of nearly $470 million per year. The Commission should recognize this petition for what it is-a meritless, last-ditch desperation ploy by a company that had an opportunity for input into every stage of the process." -Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com
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