Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-ietf-enum-e164-gstn-np-00.txt

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 18:28:21 -0500

A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts directories.
This draft is a work item of the Telephone Number Mapping Working Group of the IETF.

	Title		: Number Portability in the GSTN: An Overview
	Author(s)	: M. Foster, T. McGarry, J. Yu
	Filename	: draft-ietf-enum-e164-gstn-np-00.txt
	Pages		: 34
	Date		: 22-Nov-00
	
This document provides an overview of E.164 telephone number
portability (NP) in the Global Switched Telephone Network (GSTN).
There are three types of number portability: service provider number
portability (SPNP), location portability, and service portability.
Service provider portability, the focus of the present draft, is a
regulatory imperative in many countries seeking to liberalize local
telephony service competition, by enabling end-users to retain pre-
existing telephone numbers while changing service providers.
Implementation of NP within national GSTN entails potentially
significant changes to numbering administration, network element
signaling, call routing and processing, billing, service management,
and other functions.  NP changes the fundamental nature of a dialed
E.164 number from a hierarchical physical routing address to a
virtual address, thereby requiring the transparent translation of
the later to the former.  In addition, there are various regulatory
constraints which establish relevant parameters for NP
implementation, most of which are not network technology specific.
Consequently, the implementation of NP behavior consistent with
applicable regulatory constraints, as well as the need for
interoperation with the existing GSTN NP implementations, are
relevant topics for numerous areas of IP telephony work-in-progress
at IETF.

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