Trading Partner Profiles (TPPs) are simply "handshakes" between carriers to trade numbers with one another. Providing number portability to customers is required by the FCC (except in some specific locations/situations). Generally, these trading partner profiles contain a few pieces of relevant local number porting operations information, such as:
- Company Name
- SPID(s)/OCN(s)
- Type of SPID (wireless/wireline)
- Business Hours / Holidays
- Residential & Business Account Porting Rules
- Where to submit CSR/LSR requests
- Escalation contacts
- Other "good to know" information, such as FOC grace periods, and same-day FOC procedures.
For most carriers, this "handshake" is a simply exchange of a PDF/word document via email. For others that have more advanced systems/portals, you can "request" access to port from the carrier via their website/GUI. For a select few - mainly the RBOCs such as AT&T or CenturyLink - you need to contact an account manager and begin a bit of a longer (legal) process to get access to their systems.
ATL would say that a typical TPP exchange happens within 1-5 business days. However, if you are first wanting to get access to a older, legacy system (such as those provided by RBOCs) you are looking at potentially a month or two of back-and-forth to get access (and some hoops to jump through from a technical perspective - think custom security certificates and java applets that were cool back in the 90s that only run on certain versions of Internet Explorer).
We always recommend expanding your trading partner base as much as possible! You never know when you may have a customer wanting to leave their existing provider for your network - and the last thing you want is the old carrier to be a blocker to new business.
Questions about TPPs, or need assistance with acquiring one or creating yours? Just email us at LNP@atlc.com.
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