The Federal Communications Commission today asked for public comment on a petition by Telcordia Technologies to reopen the market for number portability administrative services to competition.

Telcordia filed its petition on June 13, saying that re-establishing competition in the number portability transaction business would reduce costs, bring other efficiencies to the industry and permit additional third-party vendors to compete to offer these services.

In a letter sent to the FCC, Richard Jacowleff, president of Interconnection Solutions at Telcordia, said, “The FCC’s original intent was for a competitive market that would serve the public interest and save costs for carriers and consumers. We are filing this petition to advise the Commission that a competitive market no longer exists…”

When number portability was first introduced, the FCC intended for administrative services to be handled by two or more providers.

Today, Jacowleff said in a statement that Telcordia is pleased that the FCC is moving quickly to get comment on its petition to reopen the market for the administration of number portability. “We believe competition will ultimately benefit consumers and service providers alike, as Congress and the Commission initially intended,” he said. “We are particularly gratified to see that the comment cycle will be completed by Sept. 21, 2007.”

Currently, NeuStar is the sole provider of number portability administration services to the North American Portability Management, LLC, which is the industry consortium established to contract for number portability services.

The petition also asked that the Commission eliminate the financial penalty provisions of Amendment 57 to the contract between the NAPM and NeuStar, and direct the NAPM to implement an open competitive bidding process for number portability administration services.

Interested parties have until August 22 to file comments on the petition.