NANPA: About The North American Numbering Plan Administration

The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) was created for the US and its territories, Canada and the Caribbean, and it covers 19 countries in all. Without this plan, we wouldn't be able to make a long distance call with any hope of the call reaching the desired party. The NANP is administered by the North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA).

Trying to determine all the ins and outs of the NANPA is a little confusing, as each area covered by the NANP has its own national administrator. In the United States, the national administrator is NeuStar (previously Lockheed Martin IMS), a company that was chosen the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in 1997, after a challenging bidding war. NeuStar was originally selected to serve for a total of five years, that was renewed in 2003 for an additional five years. In Canada, the numbering administrator is Science Applications International Corp. Canada, and in other participating NANP countries, the regulatory authorities may either serve in the capacity of national adminstrator or are responsible for delegating the administration to the dominant carrier.

NANPA does not make policy regarding the telephone numbering plan, but is only responsible for the administration of the North American Numbering Plan resources. NANPA's full responsibilities are outlined in FCC rules and in telecommunications industry technical directives, approved by the FCC. NANPA is further subject to industry guidelines and the regulation boards in the countries that share the NANP. NANPA assigns NANP resources, coordinates the planning process for area codes, and collects information to help forecast the future.

The main role of NANPA is in coordinating, consulting and providing assistance to regulatory authorities and national administrators, ensuring that resource materials are adequately shared throughout all the participants in the NANP. The costs of the Administration are apportioned according the populations of and services used by the other countries. This way, the participants are only responsible for covering the cots of the services they use. That way more populous areas who may use more of the service will pay more than less populous areas who use less of the NANPA services.

Obviously, the United States is the largest consumer of the NANPA and therefore, pays the majority of the cost for the service. This is regulated by the FCC, and is actually funded by the telecommunications industry. Probably through one of those unrecognizable charges that always seem to be on our phone bill.