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Those in law enforcement know that ensuring data accuracy and working quickly to solve investigations in a timely manner is critical. It can be frustrating when delays in seemingly simple tasks, like accessing phone records, hold up the process due to missing or inaccurate information.

Law enforcement agencies are under pressure to solve investigations quickly, with limited resources. Seemingly simple tasks—like accessing phone records—requires agents and officers to know the service provider of the phone number being investigated before they can subpoena the records, sacrificing valuable time in the process.

The Enhanced Law Enforcement Platform (ELEP) is a subscription-based online service that allows you to gather information on up to 100 telephone numbers per query and provides additional features. Features include, web-based interface or API integration, telephone number searches by range and specific number, as well as, historical porting information

Criminal investigations can hinge on tracking down telephone information and criminals know it. They will often take advantage of number portability to evade detection, swapping telephones and numbers from one service provider to another. Fortunately, the nation's Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC), managed by iconectiv, is a central, common and authoritative database that law enforcement and public safety agencies rely on to retrieve critical numbering information.

If you’ve ever spent hours trying to troubleshoot a technical issue with your local cable or phone company, you might appreciate the complexity involved in building a system that would serve 1,600 phone companies throughout the U.S. to make it possible for consumers to keep their phone number — even when changing carriers. Faced with what some consider the largest IT project ever undertaken within the U.S. telecom industry, Kathy Timko, executive vice president of local number portability administration (LNPA) services at the Bridgewater-based iconectiv, was undaunted by the complexity of building a new nationwide system that would manage the portability of 650 million phone numbers.

Between email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype and text messaging, no one really needs a phone number anymore, right? Wrong. Phone numbers are as important as ever—even among people who spend most of their time online. 83 percent of U.S. adult internet users had a phone conversation with a customer service rep in the past year, Forrester Research says. And a Google survey found that 47 percent of mobile search users won’t do business with a company if they can’t find its phone number. Those are just few reasons why the North American Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) plays such a key role in both the US economy and everyday life.

Described as one of the biggest IT projects ever undertaken by the U.S. telecom industry, the nation’s commercial number portability services yesterday began moving from previous vendor Neustar to new vendor iconectiv. And “it went great,” said Kathy Timko, head of local number portability administration at iconectiv, in an interview this morning. “It’s a highly orchestrated endeavor,” Timko explained.

iconectiv, the next Local Number Portability Administrator for the United States, announced the successful transition of the nation’s telephone number identification and porting information services for law enforcement and public safety agencies. Both the Enhanced Law Enforcement Platform (ELEP) and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service successfully transitioned on March 4, 2018.

Background: The FCC’s “local number portability” system allows consumers and businesses to keep their phone number when switching providers, which supports consumer choice and competition in the communications market. The transfer or “porting” of numbers between carriers is done by a neutral third party called the Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA). Number portability costs are paid for by the industry. The current LNPA’s contract automatically renews for one-year terms and the next available termination date is June 30, 2015. The FCC is overseeing the process to select the next LNPA. Maintaining the integrity and availability of the porting system is paramount.

The Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) is the system used to facilitate number porting in the U.S. for wireline, wireless, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.