TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF EXHIBITS

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ACRONYMS

PROPOSAL OVERVIEW

NeuStar’s “best value” NANPA offering will provide the Commission and the industry with the highest quality and lowest risk solution, delivered by a vendor with unmatched experience and unassailable neutrality.

During the past five-plus years, the U.S. telecommunications market has been defined by change. The passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act and subsequent increase in local competition, coupled with the emergence of new telecommunications technologies and services, propelled the demand for numbering resources to an all-time high during NeuStar’s first term as the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA). These changes necessitated new FCC rules governing the use of numbering resources. Under these new rules, NeuStar managed the unprecedented demand for numbering resources with impeccable performance. NeuStar’s proposal for the second five-year NANPA term is built on this solid foundation. By continuing to serve as the NANPA, NeuStar can be a key constant in this time of continuous change. In the process, the Commission can be assured that NeuStar is determined to surpass its own outstanding record of performance.

NeuStar offers the Commission and the industry two factors that are simply unavailable from any other vendor: unmatched experience and unassailable neutrality.  In addition to these corporate qualities, NeuStar’s integrated operations and technology solution offers the highest quality and lowest risk.  NeuStar further sets itself apart from the competition by offering this high-quality, low-risk solution at a competitive price, thus demonstrably providing “best value” to the Commission.

Unmatched Experience

NeuStar’s numerous accomplishments during the first NANPA term are the foundation for the second term.

NeuStar’s administration of vital numbering resources has been a steady and reliable beacon throughout this period of competitive upheaval in telecommunications.  Since its selection by the Commission in 1997 as the first and only impartial NANPA, NeuStar has effectively and efficiently administered the NANP, working cooperatively with the FCC to

NeuStar builds and integrates sophisticated systems on aggressive schedules, selects the best hardware and third-party software components, develops custom-software applications, and supports these integrated systems 24 by 7 in our world-class data centers. However, unlike other vendors, NeuStar recognizes that the systems it builds are tools that enable people to administer resources in a neutral and evenhanded fashion, and are not solutions unto themselves.

NeuStar’s experience will benefit both the Commission and the industry during the upcoming years, for change is once again accelerating.  The Commission’s numbering policies are having a dramatic effect on resource utilization, as evidenced by the recent drop in CO code assignments.  The implosion of the CLEC industry has triggered the large-scale return of CO codes, a situation further complicated by number portability.  Conversely, new services like VoIP, ENUM, and WiFi are becoming more widely adopted and deployed, fueling the search for additional resource optimization measures. This environment will have significant impact on number administration and presents new challenges that require an experienced, tested NANPA.  NeuStar is that NANPA.

NeuStar’s experience is embodied in its existing NANPA organization. Key personnel within this group, led by Mr. John Manning, have over 130 years of combined industry and regulatory experience and over 40 years of actual, direct NANPA experience. It is a veteran team, widely respected as industry experts, working together cohesively and efficiently. NeuStar will augment this team with experienced technical experts to deliver the new system specified in the solicitation.  All proposed “Key Personnel” are already on board and other personnel needed on Day One have been named and are poised to commence work immediately under the next term.

The NANPA organizational structure has been optimized to continue to achieve high productivity and excellent service quality. In addition, the NeuStar’s NANPA organization is dedicated solely to the performance of NANPA functions, and reports directly to a company officer.  Any problems will be diagnosed quickly, escalated through a short chain of command, and resolved expeditiously.

As the telecommunications industry continues to undergo fundamental structural change, the Commission can be confident that NeuStar possesses the unmatched NANPA experience and demonstrated track record of performance to navigate the continuously changing industry

landscape, while avoiding the uncertainty surrounding the selection of and transition to an inexperienced NANPA.

Unassailable Neutrality

At NeuStar, neutrality is not a platitude; it is our identity.  Our neutrality ensures timely, fair, and even-handed NANP resource administration now and into the future.

The neutrality of the NANPA is critical to the effective administration of NANP resources, and is an essential component of a vendor’s value. Neutrality is vital because the Commission and service providers must rely upon the NANPA to administer numbering resources strictly in accordance with Commission rules and industry guidelines, and in an even-handed, neutral manner ensuring that no particular industry segment or technology is unduly advantaged or disadvantaged.

NeuStar understands that neutrality is not equal to passivity.  Neutrality serves as the platform upon which, as the NANPA, NeuStar provides proactive leadership to ensure the long-term viability of the NANP.  From the principled denial of an NPA code request to Missouri in 1998 to the pioneering NPA Exhaust Analysis in 1999 to the proactive management of the abandoned CO code crisis of 2000-2001, NeuStar has consistently taken leadership positions with the dual goals of NANP viability and telecommunications infrastructure stability.

NeuStar satisfies all of the Commission’s strict criteria for being a neutral third party.  Our neutrality is not sheltered, fenced-off, or confined to certain groups and organizations; rather, it is deeply ingrained throughout the entire company and fundamental to our existence and way of doing business. All NeuStar employees follow a strict FCC-approved neutrality “Code of Conduct”. NeuStar employs an independent FCC-approved auditor to verify that our services are being provided in a neutral fashion and to confirm our ongoing adherence to the neutrality Code of Conduct.  NeuStar has passed all 11 quarterly audits to-date, a spotless record.

NeuStar’s neutrality goes beyond its Code of Conduct and the day-to-day actions of its personnel and extends to the corporate level.  For example, NeuStar has consciously chosen to diversify its (and its subsidiaries’) customer base to avoid receiving a majority of its revenue from a single service provider, industry segment, or aligned bloc of service providers.  This diversity assures the Commission of NeuStar’s neutrality commitment.

Lowest Risk Deployment and Operations

NeuStar’s transition plan, combined with its position as the incumbent NANPA, ensures a smooth, flawless migration to the NANP administration system (NAS) followed by effective, reliable operations.

By retaining NeuStar as the NANPA, a risky and complex transition of NANPA services to an inexperienced entity is avoided.  The NANPA role demands continuous, seamless, and transparent service.  The assignment of telephone number resources cannot be interrupted because of failed or difficult transition between vendors.  As the current NANPA, NeuStar is the only vendor that can provide a smooth, risk-free evolution to the next term and avoid the uncertainties associated with such an evolution.

NeuStar has developed a sound migration plan and will concentrate on the development and deployment of the new NANPA system the moment the contract is awarded. NeuStar can successfully transition NANPA operations to the NAS after the development period without having to hire any staff or conduct NANPA process and familiarization training.

Upon review of the NANPA system requirements and the specified deployment schedule, NeuStar quickly determined that the timeline is very aggressive.  However, NeuStar can and will meet the schedule challenge by leveraging the business rules, algorithms, and logic from the current NANPA systems and the application framework of NeuStar’s National Pooling Administration System.  NeuStar believes that other suppliers lack the detailed knowledge of the current NANPA systems and will have difficulty satisfying the delivery schedule while maintaining the high level of quality demanded by the FCC and industry.

As if the schedule challenge is not enough, the new NANPA vendor must flawlessly migrate a tremendous volume of data (historical and current) from the current NANPA systems to the new system.  To successfully complete this undertaking, the selected vendor must possess detailed understanding of all current NANPA systems, database schemas, and underlying logic.  The significance of this understanding, which only NeuStar possesses, cannot be overstated.  For example, there are over 120,000 CO codes assigned and, at any one time, there are hundreds of CO code applications in various stages of processing.  All must be migrated flawlessly.  Just a one percent (1%) error rate would result in the incorrect disposition of 1,200 CO codes; creating

1,200 individual opportunities for code conflicts and errors and having the potential to cause service disruptions for consumers.

After the technical task of system conversion is completed, the new NANPA will face an even greater transition challenge: assuming day-to-day operations of NANP administration.  The significant risks posed by this operational challenge are fundamentally different than those posed by the technical challenge of system transition.  These risks are more directly related to the Commission’s staff and its involvement in the day-to-day issues of NANP management.  NeuStar is uniquely qualified to mitigate these risks.  NeuStar has a proven ability to handle all NANPA decision-making responsibilities.  NeuStar’s experience will enable the Commission’s limited resources to focus on its core policymaking mission, with the assurance that NANP resource administration is in qualified hands.

In addition, in today’s environment, many state regulatory agencies and, in particular, service providers, have significantly downsized their organizations, requiring their numbering resource personnel to do more with less.  As a result, they simply cannot afford the time and effort to “train” a new NANPA, nor should they have to endure the resulting disruptions of an inexperienced NANPA—during transition or through a long learning curve performing day-to-day responsibilities.

By retaining NeuStar as the NANPA, the Commission can minimize overall program risk and be confident that a new NANPA system will be successfully deployed, data will be accurately migrated, and high-quality NANPA operations will continue without interruption.

Highest Quality Solution

NeuStar has formed its NANPA solution using the highest quality combination of software, infrastructure, processes, and personnel.

As a vital tool for NANPA, the quality of the NAS serves as the foundation of NeuStar’s solution.  NeuStar’s current NANPA systems—CAS, DDS, and the NRUF—all operational and error-free, along with the production-proven National PA System application framework, will serve as the foundation for NAS.  NeuStar will leverage these quality software components to deliver a stable, fully functional, integrated, productivity-enhancing system on time.

Additionally, NeuStar’s NAS will offer tangible improvements over the current NANPA technology suite, including an application portal with unified logins and security, a redesigned web site, expanded automated resource management, and integrated forecasting.

To meet the solicitation’s reliability, capacity, throughput, and availability requirements, NeuStar proposes a PAS-like system architecture that is easily and incrementally scalable, using high-quality hardware from Dell, Cisco, and Sun.  Although the technical requirements in the solicitation are virtually identical to those for PAS, NeuStar has improved upon the PAS architecture in the areas of security and performance.  NeuStar has designed NAS to offer the high availability prescribed by requirements.  At carefully selected points in the architecture, redundancy has been added, either locally or cross-site, guaranteeing high availability.

While the technical quality of the architecture is impressive, it is surpassed only by the quality of NeuStar’s NANPA team.  For example, NeuStar’s NANPA team goes beyond simple understanding of NANPA process flows.  NeuStar’s team fully understands why processes flow the way they do, the rationale for decisions leading to the process flows, and the comprehensive impact of potential change on process stakeholders.  This level of quality and experience goes far beyond any one or two “brand name” individuals; this experience is organizational, institutional, and cultural.

The NANPA review process provides concrete evidence of this quality.  The real-world performance of the NeuStar NANPA team has been monitored continuously and undergone formal yearly reviews by NANC-selected industry experts and has been found to repeatedly exceed the stringent expectations of the industry.

Conclusion

NeuStar is the high-quality, low-risk choice to be the next-term NANPA; its solution embodies “best value” as enabled by unmatched experience and unassailable neutrality.

NeuStar was formed for the specific purpose of meeting the needs of the U.S. Government and the telecommunications industry for a neutral third party administrator of numbering resources.  Our commitment to this purpose has never faltered.  The NANPA defines NeuStar and is inherent to the very fabric of the company.  By retaining NeuStar as the NANPA,