NPIF – Number Portability Industry Forum

Originally commissioned as a working group under the North American Numbering Council (NANC), the Local Number Portability Administration Working Group (LNPAWG) dealt with Number Portability issues and processes/procedures. In December 2018, it was renamed the Transition Oversight Sub Committee (TOSC), and dealt primarily with issues related to the transition of NPAC from the previous vendor to iconectiv. 

After the re-chartering of the NANC, the group became The Informal LNP Team until November of 2020, when the group restructured into the Number Portability Industry Forum (NPIF). The NPIF works with the Number Administration Oversight Working Group (NAOWG) on any issues that require the involvement of the NANC and continues its mission to manage processes/procedures, and any issues related to Number Portability.
 

Our Mission

The group is an open forum that brings together number portability industry experts whose mission is to oversee decisions and recommendations related to number portability processes and interface requirement changes for the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) Service Management System (SMS).
 

Scope

The group focuses on operational and technical aspects of number portability by managing issues, recommending best practices, and identifying NPAC enhancements. The activity of the group has a direct bearing on the processes and systems that each Service Provider uses to participate in number portability.

The group is responsible for defining the requirements for the United States national NPAC/SMS and how they connect with Service Provider’s local systems to enable number portability. The NPAC/SMS serves as the central mediation system and source database for all number portability data. 

The group maintains both functional and technical requirements, as well as industry specifications for number portability. These documents are located on the Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA) web site. The LNPA web site also includes change orders and best practices documentation.

Requirement changes agreed upon by this forum will be forwarded to the NPAC contract management group, the NAPM LLC, for their approval.