New Study Confirms One Nationwide NPAC Administrator Provides the Most Economic, Reliable and Effective Numbering System

STERLING, Va., Nov. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR), the nation's Local Number Portability Administrator (LNPA), today released a new economic study it commissioned by Dr. Scott E. Masten, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. The study confirms maintaining a single number portability administrator nationwide provides substantial economic benefits to support innovation, reliability, and the effectiveness of numbering services.  Dr. Masten's study was provided to the North American Portability Management, LLC (NAPM) today with Neustar's response to its Request for Information.

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"The complex, sophisticated services offered by the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) are best handled by a single reliable and tested number portability administrator," said Dr. Masten.  "The risk of disruption and additional costs of having multiple providers is not worth the speculative benefits."

"Neustar continues to provide state-of-the-art NPAC services that support the telecom industry, consumers and the country as a critical part of our nation's infrastructure," said Steve Edwards, Senior Vice President, Carrier Services, Neustar, Inc.   "We look forward to competing in the procurement underway by the NAPM in order to provide our partners the trusted, neutral and reliable number portability services they expect." 

Considering the complex nature of NPAC services, Dr. Masten's economic analysis found that a single provider of such services offers significant economic benefits. In particular, economies of scale and scope exist because of the critical infrastructure in place to provide NPAC services to thousands of carriers nationwide. There are also transactional savings that arise for the NPAC's customers from connecting with a single, reliable vendor.  Moreover, the risks associated with multiple vendors arising from potential service disruptions and higher costs are significant.  Dr. Masten concludes that any potential benefits of requiring multiple vendors are either speculative or non-existent.

The study can be found here:  http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/semasten/Reports/Masten_NPAC_Report.pdf

As the Local Number Portability Administrator, Neustar runs the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC), the national telephone number registry service that enables the routing of calls to ported numbers. Neustar assisted the communications industry in implementing wireline number portability in 1997, wireless number portability in 2003, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) number portability in 2007.

About Dr. Masten

Scott E. Masten's research focuses on issues at the intersection of law, economics and organization, and his work has made him a leading scholar in the area of transaction cost economics. He has published influential articles relating to contracting, vertical integration, antitrust and public utility governance and is currently working on a book on the organization and governance of higher education.

About Neustar, Inc.
Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) provides market-leading, innovative services that enable trusted communication across networks, applications, and enterprises around the world. To learn more about Neustar, visit www.neustar.biz.

SOURCE Neustar, Inc.