FCC OK's Telcordia Contract as Next LNPA, Denies Neustar Appeal
The FCC adopted an order approving a contentious Telcordia contract to be the next local number portability administrator, a commission spokesman told us Thursday. A draft order to approve the Telcordia master services agreement with North American Portability Management (charged with LNPA oversight by the FCC) had been under consideration by commissioners for over three months (see 1604080062). The spokesman said the commission also approved an order denying an April appeal (application for review) by LNPA incumbent Neustar seeking public release of the MSA (see 1604120038), which was partially unredacted later in April (see 1604260049).
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Neustar, the LNP Alliance and New America's Open Technology Institute repeatedly raised concerns about the Telcordia MSA and the LNPA process in general. The FCC said April 29 that Telcordia was developing new software code for LNPA systems after the commission learned foreign nationals worked on preliminary coding, despite Telcordia assurances it would use only U.S. citizens on such work (see 1604290056). Neustar pressed the FCC to force Telcordia to explain why it shouldn't be disqualified as administrator for allegedly violating the commission's March 2015 LNPA selection order, which cited Telcordia's assurances to counter Neustar objections (see 1606020050). Telcordia denied it violated the order and said Neustar was engaged in delaying tactics and a "fishing expedition" (see 1606130040). Telcordia, Neustar, the LNP Alliance and New America's OTI didn't comment Thursday.
FCC and FBI officials reviewed facilities April 1 to be used by Telcordia (iconectiv) as the next local number portability administrator, the commission revealed. "The purpose of the site visits was to inspect and assess the preparations, planned buildout and maturity of Telcordia' s LNPA architecture and functions," said a July 13 ex parte filing posted Thursday in docket 09-109 by FCC Public Safety Bureau Chief David Simpson, who was among the bureau officials involved. He said the delegation "visited two separate and representative facilities that Telcordia will utilize as the LNPA, including the iconectiv headquarters in Piscataway, New Jersey."
During "a detailed walkthrough" of Telcordia's facilities, Simpson said, the government officials "reviewed, discussed and inspected the following: facility security practices; segregated physical access mechanisms; dedicated floor LNPA restrictions; the information solution unit; the cyber security organization, governance program and risk framework; and security operations function." They also reviewed Telcordia's "Supply Chain Risk Management, Insider Threat, Whistle Blower Programs, coding practices, security and testing tools, system administrative functions, IT functions such as the administrative functions of servers and network architecture and segmentation," he said.
During a "Sungard phase of the visit," Simpson said the officials examined "Data Center physical security controls, such as visitor processing, entryways, data cages, guards, electronic readers and access controls." (The March 2015 order said Telcordia "plans to use Sungard as its subcontractor for data center service continuity protection.") They also reviewed the "operating environment, cyber security programs including logical access security controls, circuits, and supporting infrastructure," plus "the hosting services and support mechanisms, including the security operations center, network operations center, and system administration," he said.