The Telecommunications Act of 1996 constituted a major revamp of US telecommunications regulation, and in many ways redefined the industry’s concept of “telecommunications.”

The Act mandated, among other things, that any telco could enter a local market. This meant that telecommunications companies had to make it possible for clients to transfer their phone services from one provider to another while keeping their current phone numbers.

In order for network operators to efficiently determine to which new carrier and individual telephone a call should be routed, a new system had to be created to detect where a number lived in the virtual sense. The Number Portability Administration Center was eventually named after it (NPAC).

The Location Routing Number (LRN) was created to make this process easier. These are unique numerical identifiers that use a 10-digit telephone number format to route calls to numbers that have changed carriers.

A number is assigned to each switch in a specific geographic area, which serves as a network address. On the carrier’s end, the system is told to do a database query to get the LRN associated with the destination phone number.

Every phone number that is transferred to a different carrier must be given an LRN, according to a 1996 rule. Previously, the Numbering Plan Area-Numbering Plan Exchange (NPA-NXX) was responsible for determining the address of a specific telephone number. It indicated the service provider, carrier type (wireline or wireless), as well as the state and rate center where the phone number was first assigned.

You can access our LRN data service in real time either API or SIP. We also offer a list upload option and batch processing on our self service portal.