Neustar fights to keep number portability contract away from Ericsson's Telcordia

Neustar, the telecommunications data service provider, is strongly protesting a recommendation that Ericsson's Telcordia unit be named as the winner of a major telephone-numbers management contract.

The contract, which Neustar has had with the US government since 1997, makes up nearly half of Neustar's revenue. At issue is which vendor is going to be the US government's neutral and tested local number portability administrator (LNPA), which helps phone subscribers keep their numbers when switching carriers.

Neustar argued that Ericsson has a vested interest in the success of its US carrier customers and that as a network vendor it cannot be viewed as neutral, and neither can SunGard, Ericsson's subcontractor for data center services, because it has connections to interconnected VoIP and telecom service providers.