With 65 countries having implemented a solution as of 2008, and 24 more countries to implement number portability by 2012, it is important to examine the different types of number portability models that carriers can deploy.
Various solutions have been deployed during the past decade, and provided insight into key features of systems that best address the challenges to the adoption of portability.
Several aspects of number portability implementations are relevant to national mandates including the number administration, nation reference databases and OSS/BSS systems to handle the transition of a subscriber to a new network.
This paper looks specifically at the number portability systems within the carrier that handle the real-time connection of voice and messaging services.