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Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) is a provider of clearinghouse and directory services that enable communication across networks, applications, and enterprises around the world. The company provides competing communications service providers (CSPs) and enterprises with equal access to shared resources. In addition, Neustar facilitates advanced services and helps to route voice, advanced data applications and IP-based communications.
Neustar was founded to meet the technical and operational challenges of the communications industry when the U.S. government mandated local number portability in 1996. While the company remains the provider of the solution that the communications industry relies upon to meet this mandate, it also has developed a range of services related to addressing, interoperability and infrastructure (see below) that meet an array of customer needs.
Neustar was incorporated in Delaware in 1998 to acquire its business from Lockheed Martin Corporation. This acquisition was completed in November 1999.
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Business Overview
Neustar’s customers use the databases that Neustar contractually maintains in its clearinghouse to obtain the data required to successfully route telephone calls in the United States and Canada, to exchange information with other CSPs and to manage technological changes in their own networks.
- Neustar operates the directories that manage virtually all telephone area codes and numbers, and enables the routing of calls among thousands of competing CSPs in the United States and Canada.
- Neustar also provides clearinghouse services to emerging CSPs including Internet service providers, mobile network operators, cable television operators, and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service providers.
- In addition, Neustar provides domain name services, including internal and external managed DNS solutions that play a role in directing and managing traffic on the Internet, and manages the authoritative directories for the .us and .biz Internet domains.
- Neustar administers the directory for U.S. Common Short Codes, part of the short messaging service relied upon by the U.S. wireless industry, and provides solutions used by mobile network operators worldwide to enable mobile instant messaging for their end users.
Service Offerings
Addressing Services
- North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA)
- National Pooling Administration (NPA)
- NeuStar UltraDNS Services
- Domain Registry Services
- U.S. Common Short Codes
- ENUM
- Wireless Do-Not-Call
Interoperability Services
- Wireline and Wireless Number Portability
- IP Exchange Services
- Order Management Services (OMS)
Infrastructure Services and Other Services
- Network Management
- Connection Services
- Next Generation Messaging (NGM) Services
- Fiduciary Compliance Services
- Service Order Administration (SOA)
- Sabitini DNS
Customers
Neustar serves traditional providers of communications, including local exchange carriers (LECs), competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), wireless service providers and long distance carriers. The company also serves emerging CSPs and fast-growing providers of VoIP services. In addition to serving traditional CSPs, NeuStar also serves a growing number of customers who are either enablers of Internet services or providers of information and content to Internet and telephone users.
Contracts
Neustar provides many of its addressing, interoperability and infrastructure services pursuant to private commercial and government contracts. Specifically:
- Neustar provides wireline and wireless number portability, implements the allocation of pooled blocks of telephone numbers and provides network management services pursuant to seven contracts with North American Portability Management LLC, an industry group that represents all TSPs in the United States. Although the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has plenary authority over the administration of telephone number portability, it is not a party to Neustar’s contracts with North American Portability Management LLC. The North American Numbering Council, a federal advisory committee to which the FCC has delegated limited oversight responsibilities, reviews and oversees North American Portability Management LLC’s management of these contracts.
- Neustar also provides wireline number portability and network management services in Canada pursuant to a contract with the Canadian LNP Consortium Inc., a private corporation composed of telecommunications service providers who participate in number portability in Canada.
- Neustar serves as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) Administrator and the National Pooling Administrator pursuant to two separate contracts with the FCC. Under these contracts, NeuStar administers the assignment and implementation of new area codes in North America, the allocation of central office codes (which are the three-digit prefixes following the area codes) to TSPs in the United States, and the assignment and allocation of pooled blocks of telephone numbers in the United States in a manner designed to conserve telephone number resources.
- Neustar is the operator of the .biz Internet top-level domain by contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Similarly, pursuant to a contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the company operates the .us Internet domain registry.
- Neustar has an exclusive contract with CTIA — The Wireless Association to serve as the registry operator for the administration of U.S. Common Short Codes. U.S. Common Short Codes are short strings of numbers to which text messages can be addressed — a common addressing scheme that works across all participating wireless networks.
- Neustar forged a strategic partnership with the GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association for mobile providers, to launch PathFinder – the industry’s first commercially available Carrier ENUM offering. PathFinder automatically translates a phone number into an IP-based address, enabling users to initiate a wide range of IP-based communications via their existing phone numbers and contact books in their handsets. The GSMA oversees PathFinder, while NeuStar manages the service on the GSMA’s behalf.
External links
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