NeuStar rolls out IP clearinghouse

NeuStar, which has been providing a number of intercarrier services, this week is launching a new clearinghouse service aimed squarely at the IP service market with an emphasis on voice –over-IP providers.

Built on the company’s Convergent Clearinghouse platform, the IP Clearinghouse will connect islands of VoIP and other IP-based services among service providers’ networks and between carriers and some customers. The goal is to give carriers the ability to launch service quickly without significant investment, said Lisa Donnan, vice president of marketing for NeuStar.

"It’s really us allowing them to bridge interoperability gaps," she said.

At the core of the clearinghouse is a real-time registry built on ENUM technology that contains more than 100 million entries and supports more than 20,000 updates per day. Though the registry, a CLEC for example could easily find the end points of a cable provider offering VoIP to its subscriber base. From a cost perspective, such a scenario could allow for both carriers to bypass traditional public network links and trade traffic with virtually any other VoIP provider.

"All of the IP voice in the world right now is still being glued together by PSTN pipes," said Steve Granick, director of business development for NeuStar. "The fundamental underpinning of communications is the unconscious assumption that you can reach anyone from anywhere. It is of limited benefit to trade traffic on a bilateral basis."

At the same time, the clearinghouse also will provide PSTN provisioning interfaces to assure interoperability between IP and PSTN networks.

NeuStar has signed up at least one North American tier-one carrier but wouldn’t reveal names just yet.