NAPM Blames Neustar for Lack of Key Information Sharing on LNPA Transition
North American Portability Management blamed Neustar for the lack of information sharing on the local number portability administrator (LNPA) transition from that company to Telcordia/iconectiv. IT experts helping Neustar recently said NAPM and its transition oversight manager, PwC, aren't sharing…
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information on transition governance, risk and scheduling, and, consequently, a May 2018 target date for completing the LNPA shift could be delayed into 2019 (see 1611210039). "Because the authors have not received this information, they claim that it is 'reasonable to conclude that the transition will not be completed until sometime in 2019,'" said an NAPM filing answering the IT experts Tuesday in docket 09-109. "It is not reasonable for Neustar to file a report concluding that the transition will not be completed until sometime in 2019 based on the fact that Neustar has not received certain information, particularly because Neustar itself is solely to blame for its lack of access to that information." NAPM said the company has been claiming a right to disclose confidential information it's receiving as the incumbent LNPA. "Having announced this position, it should be of no surprise to anyone that the other parties participating in the transition meetings have refused to share confidential information with Neustar, or sought to limit the sharing of confidential information with Neustar to the greatest extent possible, until Neustar agrees to an appropriate multi-party non-disclosure agreement ('NDA') that protects all parties’ interests, including Neustar’s," said NAPM. "It would be irresponsible to share confidential information about critical national infrastructure with any entity that refuses to recognize its legal and ethical obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the information." Neustar's unwillingness to protect confidential information and execute a "reasonable NDA" has prevented joint transition meetings, said NAPM, which added that it continues to seek to negotiate an NDA with Neustar. A Neustar spokesman said NAPM "fails to respond on the merits to the serious concerns of Neustar’s experts, with decades of IT transition experience, set forth in their status report regarding transition governance, risks and schedules." Instead, he emailed, NAPM "cites as an excuse a series of false and misleading statements about the negotiations of a non-disclosure agreement, when in reality, the NAPM can safely deliver confidential information to Neustar today under the protection of an existing confidentiality agreement between the parties, as they have done for years. Neustar suggests the NAPM carefully evaluate the merits of the report.”